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| Robert Lynn Pruett |
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Robert Lynn Pruett has received a third execution date for the 28th of April, 2015. Pruett, currently residing on death row for the murder of Corrections Officer Daniel Nagle in 2002. Pruett has already received two stays of execution, one in 2013 and another in 2014. The previous stays were granted to allow for DNA testing on paper (a prison report) that was found torn up on Officer Nagle's body. The results were inconclusive and now, once again, Pruett is facing execution.
While many people believe Robert Pruett is in the right place, paying the right place for a terrible crime - he is not without his supporters. In fact, many believe the conviction to be unsafe, especially when Pruett stands to pay the ultimate price. While this is not good news for those who support Pruett, it remains to be seen whether he will receive a stay for the third time.
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| Guards escort Pruett to court |
I think a stay is highly unlikely at this point (barring last minute filings from attorneys) I believe all the issues are exhausted.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.I agree with you that another stay at this stage is highly unlikely. All avenues are exhausted, and as far as I am aware, the only request for DNA testing has been completed and returned 'inconclusive'. I believe attorney David Dow and the Innocence Project are hoping certain mitigating factors will be considered but I think they have all been heard before.
ReplyDeleteIf Robert himself had not testified at he punishment phase, I would say Dow would have a good shot at the mitigation evidence, however, the mitigation evidence that is now known by Roberts attorneys was always known by him. They won't get much traction from that evidence.
ReplyDeleteThe other is the "deals" made with other inmates in exchange for "truthful" testimony. The problem is that giglio disclosures were made about parole letters, Roberts attorney therefore did not preserve these issues, and more importantly none of the "deals" came to fruition, making it less than likely those types of deals described in affidavits existed. Finally the affidavits from family members of the Mitchell deal are in fact "hearsay" not "dying declarations", so his brady claims will fail.
I am not a huge fan of David Dow, while he is skilled and talented... he has made some ridiculous claims that have alienated both the CCA and the CA5, and that hurts his clients.
I do hope you are wrong and that more time will be given, for whatever reason, Brady or otherwise, so that the truth can sought. Let me say that I am anti-death penalty solely because it is very clearly not a deterrent, and it disturbs me to see a supposedly civilised society fostering a situation where some individuals collectively revel in the demise of another human being.
ReplyDeleteEveryone must abide by the law and will give up some personal liberty to benefit from living in a society, whether that is paying taxes or behaving in a way which isn't damaging to other members of that society. But, I don't understand a legal system where people do not get proper representation, or when attorneys make mistakes, it cannot be undone.
In this case, forget the dodgy inmate testimonies or the fact that a couple of the other officers involved were later arrested and incarcerated, or that there was no blood on Robert Pruett's clothes save for his own. It all sounds suspicious but is not conclusive one way or another.
The prosecutor claimed that the conclusive evidence is that the wound on Robert Pruett's hand matches the end of the weapon. Well I challenge anyone to prove that as genuinely being conclusive evidence. Take any pencil, put a dab of red paint on your thumb in the same position as in the photos taken during the investigation, grab the pencil and make a stabbing motion, and try as you might you won't match the paint to the pencil, i.e. the blood to the weapon.
I can't believe that with so many anomalies, this case is still rumbling on. Why isn't there some kind of fail safe built into the U.S. legal system when death is the ultimate punishment?
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals, separated from law and justice he is the worst. So said Aristotle, yet still some, dare I say, backward societies struggle with this concept.
If I may clarify a few things for you. The three officers that were arrested in a sting operation AFTER the murder were a husband and wife team along with the wifes brother, none were involved in the investigation of the murder and there was no connection to the murder made. The fact is these officers along with officers at Garza unit were part of a long investigation and sting that happened to be going on at the time of the murder.
DeleteThe second thing I wanted to point out is the injury that is often described as a cut, but it is in fact more like a rug burn, described in testimony as a friction injury. So if you take a towel, or tape and wrap it around a pencil and hold tight enough to gain friction with motion, you would have the same type of injury.
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DeleteSo that Robert Pruett mentioned the matter of Daniel Nagle writing up a report on him to one of those very officers on the day of the murder is false then?
ReplyDeleteThere was an ongoing investigation, but I'm sure those officers were not aware of it at the time and so that would have had no bearing on their actions, whatever they may have been on the day of the murder.
On the other matter, to get any kind of injury to the thumb you would have to firmly grip the weapon with the thumb tucked under the forefinger, that is entirely unnatural.
The prosecutor is on record as saying that the injury to Robert Pruett's thumb matched the end of the weapon, that is entirely impossible and therefore a lie.
If your position is to stick rigidly to documentary evidence and statements, that's your prerogative, but I'd advise that you don't take it upon yourself to reinterpret the evidence with your 'rug burn' theory as it weakens your other arguments.
"So that Robert Pruett mentioned the matter of Daniel Nagle writing up a report on him to one of those very officers on the day of the murder is false then?"
DeleteThere is no testimony alluding to that in the record.
"On the other matter, to get any kind of injury to the thumb you would have to firmly grip the weapon with the thumb tucked under the forefinger, that is entirely unnatural.
The prosecutor is on record as saying that the injury to Robert Pruett's thumb matched the end of the weapon,"
The injury is in between the thumb and forefinger and "matches the end of the weapon" in that there are two ends to a weapon. The soft skin tissue between the thumb and forefinger injury is described in testimony as "a friction injury from a porous material".
I'd suggest you review the trial transcripts and pretrial motions if you wish to form an argument against the testimony. I am going with what was presented, in the first instance to the jury, and in the second instance what was heard outside of the presence of the jury.
In both instances it is easy to see how the jury convicted based on the evidence, and why they got it right based on pretrial motions and evidence heard outside the presence of the jury.