In his final hours, former police officer Robert Fratta — convicted in the murder-for-hire plot of his estranged wife — expressed nervous curiosity over the ballooning constitutional crisis. The granting of an injunction order by a Travis County district court judge brought his execution to a momentary halt Tuesday, only for it to continue as planned following a quick succession of rulings from higher courts.
“Things were happening fast and furious,” said Shawn Nolan, a Pennsylvania-based federal public defender for the two death row inmates who sued to stop the use of the drugs.
Fratta was ultimately led from his holding cell and strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber. He uttered a final “amen” to a spiritual adviser’s prayer for mercy and forgiveness.
Without fanfare, he declined to offer a last statement as his son and former brother-in-law watched through a barred window. He kept his eyes closed and black-rimmed glasses on as a lethal dose of the chemical pentobarbital entered his body — the same sedative that prompted the legal dispute. Sputtering, snorts and snores quickly erupted from his mouth before silence descended on the execution chamber.
He was declared dead 24 minutes later but the color, by then, had faded from his already pale face.
Fight against expired execution drugs not over
Death row inmates Wesley Ruiz and John Lezell Balentine, whom Nolan represents, are among those scheduled for execution later this year. Their pursuit of the lawsuit to stop the use of expired pentobarbital continues. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice uses the drug — which causes rapid coma, respiratory depression and hypotension once injected — but reportedly has a dwindling supply of it.
Lawyers for the defendants argued during a lengthy Tuesday morning proceeding that the aging chemical may lose its potency, while the state agency assured a judge that recent tests found it to be “potent and effective.”
Fratta joined the lawsuit in the days leading up his scheduled execution.
Nolan and his legal team can either return to the Court of Criminal Appeals to question their jurisdiction over their vacated order or ask the Texas Supreme Court to review their position further, he said.
“This litigation is still alive,” Nolan said. “We will be fighting in the courts to prevent Texas from executing people with expired drugs.”
In addition to Fratta, another Harris County defendant on death row, Arthur Brown Jr., joined the lawsuit. His state Office of Capital and Forensic Writs attorney, Benjamin Wolff, declined to address his client’s role in the lawsuit.
Brown is scheduled to be executed March 9 as a contentious debate over judicial jurisdiction over death warrants continues in the Court of Criminal Appeals. That issue may have little impact ultimately over his death penalty case since the trial court judge went ahead and signed his death warrant.
The civil judge’s decision on Tuesday — had a higher court allowed it to stand — would have given Brown’s lawyers more time to continue their investigation into whether an intellectual disability claim can be pursued in his case — a diagnosis that could prevent his state-sanctioned death.
The vacated order prevented that, said Joshua Reiss, chief of the Post-Writs Division in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
No execution dates set for Fratta's accomplices
The District Attorney’s Office, meanwhile, has yet to pursue execution dates for Fratta’s convicted accomplices, Joseph Prystash and Howard Paul Guidry, in the murder-for-hire plot — though both of them are eligible for execution, Reiss continued.
District Attorney Kim Ogg did not say when dates could be sought but assured that justice would be pursued. Her office has pursued the death penalty on fewer cases than past administrations.
During Fratta’s execution, Ogg fidgeted, closed her eyes at length and occasionally checked her watch as the minutes stretched on. She stood alongside the victim’s relatives and friends but eventually stepped back.
“Every single death penalty case and every single inmate who has received the death penalty and is here on death row gets their own day. Each case gets it own resolution,” Ogg said, moments following Fratta’s execution. “I have no future dates but I saw the pain on this family’s face, like I do on every family, and we’ll see that justice is done in all the cases.”
Jurors convicted and sentenced both men to die for their respective roles in the death of Farah Fratta.
Guidry, who was 18 at the time of the murder, was identified as the trigger man who laid in a wait in a child's playhouse and ambushed Fratta's wife as she came home. He shot her in the head as she entered a garage.
He was promised $1,000 for carrying out the killing, while Fratta promised Prystash his Jeep vehicle. Guidry's defense attorneys at the time of his 1997 trial asked jurors to consider his age, drug use and his lack of education to spare his life.
A federal judge overturned his conviction, leading to a 2nd trial. Jurors again convicted him.
Source: houstonchronicle.com, Nicole Hensley, January 11, 2023
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde