Texas man to be executed after more than 30 years on death row

HOUSTON: A Texas man who has spent more than 30 years on death row for a murder he committed during a robbery when he was 19 years old is to be executed on Thursday.

Brent Brewer, 53, is to be put to death by lethal injection some time after 6:00 pm Central Time (0000 GMT) at the Texas State Penitentiary in the town of Huntsville, prison officials said.

Brewer was sentenced to death in 1991 for the 1990 murder of 66-year-old Robert Laminack in a robbery that netted $140 in cash. Laminack had been giving a ride to Brewer and his girlfriend, Krystie Lynn Nystrom, to a Salvation Army facility when he was fatally stabbed.

Nystrom was sentenced to life in prison. Brewer appealed for a stay of execution this week to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles but it was unanimously denied.

A motion filed with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was also rejected. Brewer´s lawyers had asked the appeals court to halt the execution on the grounds that a psychiatrist, Dr Richard Coons, who testified at his sentencing retrial had since been discredited.

Brewer´s 1991 death sentence was reviewed in 2009 and a jury sentenced him to death once again after hearing the expert testimony of Coons. Coons, despite never having interviewed Brewer, testified that he had “no conscience” and would commit violent acts in the future. Despite a ruling in a later case that Coons lacked any scientific basis for his opinions, the Texas appeals court declined to halt Brewer´s execution.