Texas Case Roundup - Robert Austin Chronicle - Pruett Gets 60-Day Delay Pending DNA Testing | AP - Houston man’s execution is sixth in TX in 2013
3 views
Skip to first unread message
Steve Hall
May 16, 2013, 10:30:04 AM5/16/13
to stand...@googlegroups.com
This e-mail contains news articles from:
Austin Chronicle - Pruett Gets 60-Day Delay Pending DNA Testing
AP - State judge delays execution set for next week
AP - Houston man’s execution is sixth so far this year
- - - - -
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2013-05-17/pruett-gets-60-day-delay-pending-dna-testing/
Thu., May 16, 2013 | Austin Chronicle
Pruett Gets 60-Day Delay Pending DNA Testing
A death row inmate is granted a rare reprieve
By Jordan Smith
According to the state of Texas, on Dec. 17, 1999, Robert Pruett, 20, took a sharpened metal rod wrapped with tape and stabbed prison guard Daniel Nagle eight times, prompting a heart attack that killed the guard. Pruett then took a disciplinary complaint that Nagle had just written concerning Pruett's behavior that afternoon – he'd tried to take a sack lunch in the recreation yard, a violation of rules – and tore it up, discarding the pieces next to the guard's body.
At the time of Nagle's death, Pruett was already serving a 99-year sentence in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's McConnell Unit in Beeville for murder; at 16 he'd been certified to stand trial as an adult for his role in the beating and stabbing death by Pruett's father of a neighbor in the Harris County trailer park where they lived. Given his record, it's little wonder that a jury in 2002 sentenced Pruett to die for Nagle's murder.
But his execution, initially slated for May 21, last week was postponed for 60 days pending the outcome of agreed-to DNA testing that could demonstrate Pruett was not responsible for Nagle's death. Pruett has maintained his innocence, and his lawyer, David Dow, founder and co-director of the Texas Innocence Network at the University of Houston Law Center, is seeking to test pieces of the ripped-up disciplinary form to see if Pruett's DNA, or that of someone else, is on the paper. "DNA testing could corroborate [Pruett's] claim of innocence while also identifying the actual perpetrator of the murder," Dow wrote in a motion filed May 9. He notes that a palm print found on the paper was not a match to Pruett, and blood found on the pieces matched Nagle and "no other DNA profiles were developed from the report," he wrote.
Pruett says he was not responsible for the stabbing. The only eyewitnesses to the murder were other inmates, and Pruett argues that inmates who know he is not responsible for the fatal attack were intimidated by other inmates and corrupt guards into maintaining their silence. Those inmates are now ready to come forward and have provided affidavits about what they would have said at trial 10 years ago had they testified, Dow said. Indeed, one "possible" explanation for the death is that Nagle – known as a by-the-book, straight-arrow guy – was providing information about guards colluding with inmates to traffic drugs and was retaliated against. A number of officers working at the McConnell Unit were subsequently indicted, according to court records.
That theory was dismissed by prosecutors at Pruett's 2002 trial; Nagle was not an informer, the unit's warden said, and the state had ample evidence that Pruett was a disciplinary problem – including at least two incidents where he threatened to kill prison guards.
At press time, the state was set to carry out the execution of Jeffrey Williams, slated to be the 498th inmate put to death since reinstatement. And with Pruett given a reprieve, Elroy Chester, whose mental abilities are in question even while his violent nature is not, is slated to be the 499th inmate put to death, on June 12. For more on his case, see "Smart Enough to Die," April 19.
/ / / / /
http://baytownsun.com/texas_ap/article_1f0c5741-f9da-5aac-9ce2-ec48618c2303.html
Thu May 16, 2013 | via Baytown Sun
State judge delays execution set for next week
The Associated Press
A state district judge has put off next week's scheduled execution of a Texas inmate condemned for the slaying of a corrections officer at a South Texas prison in 1999.
Robert Pruett faced lethal injection May 21 for the fatal stabbing of Dan Nagle, a corrections officer at the McConnell Unit prison near Beeville. Attorneys for Pruett want additional DNA testing in his case. Prosecutors agreed to a 60-day delay.
State District Judge Ronald Yeager in Bee County on Tuesday formally withdrew next week's execution date. The judge also set a hearing for June 3 to address questions about the forensic testing and a new execution setting.
Pruett has denied killing the officer. At the time of the attack, Pruett already was serving 99 years for a Harris County slaying.
- - - - -
© 2013 The Associated Press.
/ / / / /
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional/houston-mans-execution-is-sixth-so-far-this-year/nXsMc/
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 @ 7:39 p.m. | via Austin American-Statesman
Houston man’s execution is sixth so far this year
By Michael Graczyk | Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE ? A Houston man condemned for killing a police officer during a car theft arrest 14 years ago was put to death Wednesday after his last-day appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court failed.
Jeffrey Demond Williams, 37, became the sixth Texas inmate executed by lethal injection this year.
In a final statement, Williams spoke quickly and angrily, beginning with ?You clown police,? and accusing them of ?killing innocent kids, murdering young kids.?
“Y’all are getting away with murder all the time,? he continued. ?When I kill one or pop one, y’all want to kill me.
His brief tirade ended with: ?God has a plan for everything. ? I love everyone that loves me, I ain’t got no love for anyone that don?t love me.?
Williams was convicted of fatally shooting 39-year-old Houston officer Troy Blando while Blando was handcuffing him on May 19, 1999. Blando was watching a motel where car thefts were suspected when he saw Williams drive up in a Lexus that was reported stolen in a carjacking nine days earlier.
Prosecutors say that after shooting Blando, Williams fled the scene but only made it about a block before he was captured. Blando’s cuffs were hanging from one of his wrists.
?I have no sympathy for him,? said Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, who was outside the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit while the execution was carried out. “Continuing to the very end ridiculing the police just shows what kind of thug he is.”
Williams’ fingerprints were found on the Lexus and also on Blando’s vehicle, evidence showed. When arrested, Williams was carrying the 9 mm pistol determined to be the murder weapon.
At his trial, his lawyers tried to show Williams was unintelligent, had emotional problems and didn’t deserve to die.
Evidence showed Williams gave investigators five taped confessions the day he was arrested. Williams said he fired in self-defense, feared Blando could have been a carjacker and didn’t know Blando was an officer. In another confession, he acknowledged knowing he was shooting a policeman.
Court records show Blando, although in plain clothes, was carrying his badge around his neck.
/ / / / /
Steve Hall
The StandDown Texas Project
PO Box 13475
Austin, TX 78711
512.879.1675 (o
512.627.3011 (m
shall78711 (Skype
sh...@standdown.org
www.StandDown.org
Austin Chronicle - Pruett Gets 60-Day Delay Pending DNA Testing
AP - State judge delays execution set for next week
AP - Houston man’s execution is sixth so far this year
- - - - -
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2013-05-17/pruett-gets-60-day-delay-pending-dna-testing/
Thu., May 16, 2013 | Austin Chronicle
Pruett Gets 60-Day Delay Pending DNA Testing
A death row inmate is granted a rare reprieve
By Jordan Smith
According to the state of Texas, on Dec. 17, 1999, Robert Pruett, 20, took a sharpened metal rod wrapped with tape and stabbed prison guard Daniel Nagle eight times, prompting a heart attack that killed the guard. Pruett then took a disciplinary complaint that Nagle had just written concerning Pruett's behavior that afternoon – he'd tried to take a sack lunch in the recreation yard, a violation of rules – and tore it up, discarding the pieces next to the guard's body.
At the time of Nagle's death, Pruett was already serving a 99-year sentence in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's McConnell Unit in Beeville for murder; at 16 he'd been certified to stand trial as an adult for his role in the beating and stabbing death by Pruett's father of a neighbor in the Harris County trailer park where they lived. Given his record, it's little wonder that a jury in 2002 sentenced Pruett to die for Nagle's murder.
But his execution, initially slated for May 21, last week was postponed for 60 days pending the outcome of agreed-to DNA testing that could demonstrate Pruett was not responsible for Nagle's death. Pruett has maintained his innocence, and his lawyer, David Dow, founder and co-director of the Texas Innocence Network at the University of Houston Law Center, is seeking to test pieces of the ripped-up disciplinary form to see if Pruett's DNA, or that of someone else, is on the paper. "DNA testing could corroborate [Pruett's] claim of innocence while also identifying the actual perpetrator of the murder," Dow wrote in a motion filed May 9. He notes that a palm print found on the paper was not a match to Pruett, and blood found on the pieces matched Nagle and "no other DNA profiles were developed from the report," he wrote.
Pruett says he was not responsible for the stabbing. The only eyewitnesses to the murder were other inmates, and Pruett argues that inmates who know he is not responsible for the fatal attack were intimidated by other inmates and corrupt guards into maintaining their silence. Those inmates are now ready to come forward and have provided affidavits about what they would have said at trial 10 years ago had they testified, Dow said. Indeed, one "possible" explanation for the death is that Nagle – known as a by-the-book, straight-arrow guy – was providing information about guards colluding with inmates to traffic drugs and was retaliated against. A number of officers working at the McConnell Unit were subsequently indicted, according to court records.
That theory was dismissed by prosecutors at Pruett's 2002 trial; Nagle was not an informer, the unit's warden said, and the state had ample evidence that Pruett was a disciplinary problem – including at least two incidents where he threatened to kill prison guards.
At press time, the state was set to carry out the execution of Jeffrey Williams, slated to be the 498th inmate put to death since reinstatement. And with Pruett given a reprieve, Elroy Chester, whose mental abilities are in question even while his violent nature is not, is slated to be the 499th inmate put to death, on June 12. For more on his case, see "Smart Enough to Die," April 19.
/ / / / /
http://baytownsun.com/texas_ap/article_1f0c5741-f9da-5aac-9ce2-ec48618c2303.html
Thu May 16, 2013 | via Baytown Sun
State judge delays execution set for next week
The Associated Press
A state district judge has put off next week's scheduled execution of a Texas inmate condemned for the slaying of a corrections officer at a South Texas prison in 1999.
Robert Pruett faced lethal injection May 21 for the fatal stabbing of Dan Nagle, a corrections officer at the McConnell Unit prison near Beeville. Attorneys for Pruett want additional DNA testing in his case. Prosecutors agreed to a 60-day delay.
State District Judge Ronald Yeager in Bee County on Tuesday formally withdrew next week's execution date. The judge also set a hearing for June 3 to address questions about the forensic testing and a new execution setting.
Pruett has denied killing the officer. At the time of the attack, Pruett already was serving 99 years for a Harris County slaying.
- - - - -
© 2013 The Associated Press.
/ / / / /
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional/houston-mans-execution-is-sixth-so-far-this-year/nXsMc/
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 @ 7:39 p.m. | via Austin American-Statesman
Houston man’s execution is sixth so far this year
By Michael Graczyk | Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE ? A Houston man condemned for killing a police officer during a car theft arrest 14 years ago was put to death Wednesday after his last-day appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court failed.
Jeffrey Demond Williams, 37, became the sixth Texas inmate executed by lethal injection this year.
In a final statement, Williams spoke quickly and angrily, beginning with ?You clown police,? and accusing them of ?killing innocent kids, murdering young kids.?
“Y’all are getting away with murder all the time,? he continued. ?When I kill one or pop one, y’all want to kill me.
His brief tirade ended with: ?God has a plan for everything. ? I love everyone that loves me, I ain’t got no love for anyone that don?t love me.?
Williams was convicted of fatally shooting 39-year-old Houston officer Troy Blando while Blando was handcuffing him on May 19, 1999. Blando was watching a motel where car thefts were suspected when he saw Williams drive up in a Lexus that was reported stolen in a carjacking nine days earlier.
Prosecutors say that after shooting Blando, Williams fled the scene but only made it about a block before he was captured. Blando’s cuffs were hanging from one of his wrists.
?I have no sympathy for him,? said Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, who was outside the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit while the execution was carried out. “Continuing to the very end ridiculing the police just shows what kind of thug he is.”
Williams’ fingerprints were found on the Lexus and also on Blando’s vehicle, evidence showed. When arrested, Williams was carrying the 9 mm pistol determined to be the murder weapon.
At his trial, his lawyers tried to show Williams was unintelligent, had emotional problems and didn’t deserve to die.
Evidence showed Williams gave investigators five taped confessions the day he was arrested. Williams said he fired in self-defense, feared Blando could have been a carjacker and didn’t know Blando was an officer. In another confession, he acknowledged knowing he was shooting a policeman.
Court records show Blando, although in plain clothes, was carrying his badge around his neck.
/ / / / /
Steve Hall
The StandDown Texas Project
PO Box 13475
Austin, TX 78711
512.879.1675 (o
512.627.3011 (m
shall78711 (Skype
sh...@standdown.org
www.StandDown.org
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages