Robert Lynn Pruett was convicted of two killings, four years apart. The first was in 1995, in Channelview, east of Houston, when he was 15; he was sentenced to 99 years in prison for his role in the murder of a neighbor, Ray Yarborough. The second was in December 1999, when Daniel Nagle died at the McConnell Unit, a state prison near Beeville, where Pruett was serving that sentence. A jury found him guilty of capital murder and sentenced him to death in 2002. Pruett denied killing Nagle for the rest of his life. His case went through fifteen years of appeals, including several rulings under the Texas DNA-testing statute, Chapter 64 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and he was executed in Huntsville on October 12, 2017.
Pruett was born on September 18, 1979. He came from the Channelview area of Harris County. Little else about his childhood is on record. His father and his brother were both convicted in the 1995 case that sent him to prison.
Ray Yarborough was 29 and lived in Channelview. He died on August 9, 1995. Pruett was 15. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison for his role in the murder. He was a juvenile at the time of the killing and was certified to stand trial as an adult.
Two other members of his family were convicted in the same case. His father received a life sentence. His brother received 40 years. The three took part together in the killing of the neighbor. Pruett was convicted as an accomplice, under the Texas law of parties, by which a person can be held responsible for a crime committed by another.
The court that tried the case in Harris County and the date of the conviction are not on record. Pruett was taken into the Texas prison system to serve the 99-year term and was still serving it in December 1999.
On December 17, 1999, Daniel Nagle, 37, died at the McConnell Unit in Bee County.
A Bee County grand jury indicted Pruett on June 26, 2001. The trial was moved from Bee County to Nueces County to help ensure a fair and impartial jury. The jury found him guilty of capital murder on April 23 or April 24, 2002; accounts differ on the day. Jurors deliberated a little more than two hours on the sentence. The same jury sentenced him to death on April 30, 2002. The jury answered the future-dangerousness question yes and the mitigation question no.
At the trial, no physical evidence tied him to Nagle's death. Six prisoners testified for the state about what they had seen and heard. Pruett testified that he did not kill Nagle and said he had been framed. He was 22.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence on September 22, 2004, in No. 74,370. Pruett did not seek review in the U.S. Supreme Court. His application for state habeas relief was heard next. The trial court recommended relief on one ground, a discovery violation, and denial on every other claim. The Court of Criminal Appeals adopted the findings except those recommending relief and denied the application on October 19, 2005 (Ex parte Pruett, 207 S.W.3d 767).
Pruett then filed a federal habeas petition. On August 12, 2010, the federal district court in the Southern District of Texas granted the State's motion for summary judgment and denied relief, while granting a certificate of appealability on two related claims. On December 27, 2011, the Fifth Circuit "AFFIRM[ED] the district court's denial of habeas relief and DENY[IED] Pruett's request to expand the COA." The claims decided included that his rights to due process, effective assistance of counsel and confrontation had been violated, and a challenge to the admission of a summary of the facts of his earlier murder conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 1, 2012.
On May 9, 2013, Pruett filed a motion for DNA testing in the state trial court under Chapter 64. A reprieve of 60 days, granted about twelve days before a scheduled execution that year, allowed the testing to go forward. The trial court found that the results were not exculpatory and that it was "not reasonably probable that [Pruett] would have been acquitted had the new results been available at trial." The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed that conclusion on October 22, 2014, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on March 30, 2015.
With an execution set for April 28, 2015, Pruett turned to the federal courts. On April 17, 2015, he filed a civil rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 asking for a stay. The district court held that it lacked jurisdiction, because the complaint was in substance an unauthorized successive habeas petition, and transferred it to the Fifth Circuit. On April 23, 2015, the Fifth Circuit issued its ruling: "AFFIRM the order of transfer," "DISMISS the unauthorized successive habeas petition," "DENY the motion for stay of execution" and "DISMISS the request for a COA."
On the day of the scheduled execution, his lawyers moved for further testing under Chapter 64. The trial court granted the motion and stayed the execution. The execution was halted on the day it was to be carried out. The testing ordered by the court covered fourteen items of evidence.
A new date was set for April 2016 and then moved to August 23, 2016. On August 11, 2016, Judge Lawrence Meyers of the Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the execution "pending further order of this Court." The same day, another judge of the court dismissed two habeas applications Pruett had filed that year, which claimed innocence and alleged undisclosed deals with witnesses and false testimony or forensic evidence. By then Pruett had faced four execution dates.
On April 5, 2017, the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled against him in Pruett v. State, No. AP-77,065, an appeal from the 156th Judicial District Court of Bee County. The court rejected all of his claims. The court held that "nothing in Chapter 64 entitled Pruett to relief" and that the trial court's order had been fully complied with; it had "carefully considered each of Pruett's contentions as to Chapter 64."
Judge Elsa Alcala joined the result in a concurring opinion and wrote that the new testing would not likely have changed the outcome of the trial. She said other serious questions about the conviction deserved a hearing, and wrote that the conviction rested on motive, inmate testimony and what she called "junk science," "but without any physical evidence directly establishing appellant's guilt." Judge Bert Richardson wrote separately that the testing request appeared to be a delay tactic.
Bee County set a new execution date, October 12, 2017. On August 8, 2017, Pruett filed a civil rights suit in the Southern District of Texas, No. 4:17-cv-02418, claiming a denial of due process in the Chapter 64 proceedings and seeking a stay of execution. The district court dismissed it. On October 6, 2017, the Fifth Circuit affirmed in No. 17-70021: it held that Pruett had not stated a due-process claim based on the arbitrary application of Chapter 64 or the denial of funds for an expert, and that he had not shown a substantial case on the merits that would justify a stay. Its disposition reads: "The judgment, including the denial of a stay of execution, is AFFIRMED."
On the same day the Fifth Circuit ruled on his request for permission to file a successive habeas petition, No. 17-41007. The proposed petition asserted actual innocence, with a lead claim that "In view of recently discovered evidence, no reasonable juror would have voted to convict Pruett of capital murder," along with due-process claims about forensic testimony, the State's alleged withholding of evidence about inmate witnesses, and the handling of the evidence. The court held: "The motion for authorization to file a successive habeas corpus petition is DENIED," and "Pruett's motion for a stay of execution is also DENIED." The Supreme Court denied certiorari from the April 2017 decision on October 2, 2017. His lawyers also asked it to consider whether a prisoner who claims actual innocence in federal court may be executed, and it rejected two appeals as the execution neared. Texas argued that the appeals were delay tactics on issues the courts had repeatedly rejected.
Robert Pruett was executed on Thursday, October 12, 2017, in Huntsville, Texas. He was 38. He was the 20th prisoner executed in the United States that year and the sixth in Texas, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice lists him as number 544 among executed inmates. His last statement included the line "I love y'all so much."
Pruett said from 2002 until his death that he was framed and that others at the unit could have been responsible for Nagle's death. The courts did not accept those claims, and each court that ruled on the DNA-testing questions held that the results would not have changed the outcome of the trial. One judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals, writing separately, described the case against him as resting on motive, inmate testimony and what she called "junk science." No court set aside the conviction.
1979 (September 18): Robert Lynn Pruett is born.
1995 (August 9): Ray Yarborough dies in Channelview, Harris County; Pruett, 15, is later sentenced to 99 years in prison for his role in the murder, and his father and brother are also convicted.
1999 (December 17): Daniel Nagle dies at the McConnell Unit near Beeville.
2001 (June 26): Bee County grand jury indicts Pruett.
2002 (April 23 or 24): jury finds him guilty of capital murder; April 30: death sentence.
2004 (September 22): Court of Criminal Appeals affirms on direct appeal.
2005 (October 19): state habeas relief denied.
2010 (August 12): federal district court denies habeas relief.
2011 (December 27): Fifth Circuit affirms.
2012 (October 1): certiorari denied.
2013 (May 9): first Chapter 64 motion filed.
2014 (October 22): Court of Criminal Appeals affirms the trial court's ruling on the results.
2015 (March 30): certiorari denied.
2015 (April 23): Fifth Circuit denies a stay; April 28: execution halted on the day.
2016 (August 11): Court of Criminal Appeals judge stays the August 23 execution.
2017 (April 5): Court of Criminal Appeals rules against him under Chapter 64.
2017 (October 6): Fifth Circuit rules against him in two cases.
2017 (October 12): executed in Huntsville.