United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 21-70010 ____________ FILED March 7, 2025 Brittany Marlowe Holberg, Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Petitioner—Appellant,

versus Eric Guerrero, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division,

Respondent—Appellee. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas USDC No. 2:15-CV-285 ______________________________ Before Higginbotham, Higginson, and Duncan, Circuit Judges. Patrick E. Higginbotham, Circuit Judge: Brittany Marlowe Holberg was 23 years old when she was sentenced to death for capital murder by a jury in Amarillo, Texas. Holberg has spent the last 27 years of her life on death row, contending that the State of Texas violated her right to due process when it chose to disobey the commands of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and failed to disclose impeachment evidence that its critical trial witness was a paid informant. Under Brady and its progeny, we REVERSE and VACATE Holberg’s conviction, and Case: 21-70010 Document: 246-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/07/2025

No. 21-70010

REMAND the case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We pause only to acknowledge that 27 years on death row is a reality dimming the light that ought to attend proceedings where a life is at stake, a stark reminder that the jurisprudence of capital punishment remains a work in progress. The death penalty itself has traversed a torturous path in this country, dragging Ms. Holberg along with it. From the return of capital punishment in the Seventies—paired with a veritable flood of habeas petitions—came attendant efforts to temper the flow. 1 In the service of federalism and management, Congress enlisted the aid of the lower federal courts by routing review of state decisions to the district courts through the gates of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). Yet capital punishment cannot survive without adherence to the fundamental constitutional girds securing the right to trial by jury. Ms. Holberg’s 27 years on death row is a showcase of the State’s failure to abide by a core structure of prosecution: the Brady doctrine. I. A. This is the story of Brittany Marlowe Holberg, a bright young woman who—after a childhood and adolescence marked by repeated sexual abuse and trauma—fell into the iron grip of crack cocaine and turned to prostitution to support her addiction. 2

_____________________ 1 This included a brief flirtation with prospective-only rulings that would confine prisoners to the law in place when their cases are final. See generally Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989). 2 The district court below issued an appendix to its decision outlining the severe and pervasive sexual trauma and substance abuse of Holberg’s young life and urging Texas to consider clemency. See Appendix, Holberg v. Davis, No. 2:15-CV-285-Z, 2021 WL