HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - The Latest on the execution of a Texas inmate who was convicted in a prison guard’s 1999 death (all times local):
6:55 p.m.
A Texas inmate convicted in the death of a prison guard has been executed after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyer’s attempts to halt the punishment.
Robert Pruett was given a lethal injection Thursday evening for the December 1999 death of corrections officer Daniel Nagle at a prison southeast of San Antonio. Nagle was repeatedly stabbed with a tape-wrapped metal rod, though an autopsy showed he died from a heart attack that the assault caused.
Prosecutors have said the attack stemmed from a dispute over a peanut butter sandwich that Pruett wanted to take into a recreation yard against prison rules.
The 38-year-old Pruett was already serving a 99-year sentence for a neighbor’s killing near Houston when he was convicted in Nagle’s death.
Pruett’s execution is the sixth this year in Texas.
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5:20 p.m.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to halt the execution of a Texas inmate convicted in the death of a corrections officer who was stabbed nearly 18 years ago and then had a heart attack.
The high court rejected two appeals and requests for reprieves from attorneys for 38-year-old Robert Pruett about an hour before he was scheduled to be taken to the death chamber for lethal injection Thursday evening.
Pruett’s lawyers have been arguing he was innocent of the December 1999 killing of 37-year-old Daniel Nagle at a prison southeast of San Antonio.
Pruett’s execution would be the sixth this year in Texas, which carries out the death penalty more than any other state.
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10:30 a.m.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has rejected a clemency petition from death row inmate Robert Pruett.
Pruett is scheduled to die Thursday evening for the 1999 killing of a Texas corrections officer, Daniel Nagle.
Attorneys for the 38-year-old inmate asked the board to recommend to Gov. Greg Abbott that Pruett be given a 120-day reprieve and that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison.
Parole board spokesman Raymond Estrada says the six-member panel unanimously voted Wednesday not to recommend clemency.
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12:05 a.m.
Attorneys for an inmate convicted in a prison guard’s death are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his scheduled execution.
They want justices to review whether lower courts properly denied a federal civil rights lawsuit that sought additional DNA testing in Robert Pruett’s case and whether a prisoner who claims actual innocence, as Pruett does, can be put to death.
The execution is set for Thursday.
The 38-year-old Pruett was already serving 99 years for a neighbor’s killing when he was convicted in the 1999 death of corrections officer Daniel Nagle at a prison southeast of San Antonio. Nagle was stabbed repeatedly with a metal rod and an autopsy showed the assault caused a heart attack that killed him.
Pruett would be the sixth Texas prisoner executed this year.
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