Crisis Stage Life and Death Row

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

He gave us both a kiss. Said he'd see us later.

And that was the last time.

It was a murder weapon. I stabbed the victim.

But no physical evidence whatsoever.

If you take a life, you more or less just dug your own grave.

We just hope, we pray...

that things do change between today and tomorrow.

CHANTING

CHANTING

Good afternoon and welcome to death penalty clinic

at the University of Houston Law Centre.

Over the next 14 weeks, you will be working on real life cases.

These are murderers who society has deemed

that they are the worst of the worst of the worst.

Their state and federal appeals have been exhausted.

And we are on a literal countdown to execution.

You are their last and only hope,

and so you must take this work absolutely seriously.

Some of Texas' brightest students

are signing up for an extreme law course.

They'll be trying to save killers on death row.

You all are going to be dealing with police officers.

You all are going to be dealing with prosecutors.

You all are going to be dealing with prison inmates.

I think that's a pretty important responsibility

that you all have this semester.

The contributions of the interns are critically important.

We don't have to pay students and interns what we would have to pay

a professional investigator.

So we're able to do as good a job with almost no money

as I think anybody in the country could do.

The students will be working on two crisis appeals,

trying to save some of the youngest prisoners facing execution.

Gang member and drive-by killer Robert Garza.

And prison guard murderer Robert Pruett.

The people on my team are young people.

And here it is,

they are confronting the death of somebody

who is not a whole lot older than they are, you know?

And who has been in prison

from about the age that they are now.

25-year-old Kelly Hickman

has been volunteering at the death penalty clinic for two years.

She's now in her final months of law school.

The first crisis case I remember working on

was a guy named Keith Thurmond.

And the reason he sticks in my mind

is cos he was the first death row prison visit I had.

And he was executed a couple of weeks later.

We've had Bartee.

Bartee has been around the clinic for a little while.

He's had two execution dates since I've been here

and we've been able to get him off of both execution dates.

We've also had Carroll Parr.

And Cobb.

Ken Teniya.

Feldman.

There's gotta have been others. But they're all dead now.

This is my last year at the clinic.

It does mean that these will probably be

the last cases I work on,

and so a reaction becomes a little bit more meaningful.

You know, I don't want the last case that I work on to end on a bad note.

I really want to put my all into it, to do as good a job as possible

and save his life, if it's possible.

My name is Robert Pruett. I'm 33 years old.

I've got an execution date for May 21.

I'm here for the capital murder of a corrections officer.

That's what they convicted me for.

At this point, there's not a lot

that I can do myself to prevent my execution.

But I have a legal team.

I'll tell you right now, I got lucky to have people helping me.

There's a lot of guys here who don't get any help.

They're stuck with what they get and die because of it.

I got really lucky.

'A Texas prison guard is dead, the victim of a stabbing.'

'Police are searching for a prison guard's killer.'

'37-year-old Daniel Nagle was stabbed to death...'

'..a stabbing at the McConnell Prison near Beeville.

'A prison spokesman said one or more inmates stabbed Nagle to death.'

Hi, I'm here to see the Pruett evidence.

The first step for Kelly is to get to know the facts of the crime.

'He was stabbed to death and a makeshift knife was found.'

'A thin metal rod six to nine inches long was found near the body.'

'The investigation is still ongoing.'

'Internal affairs officers conducted a very thorough investigation.'

'20-year-old Robert Lynn Pruett has been indicted for the murder of Officer Daniel Nagle.

'They're also going after the death penalty.'

Generally when a case first comes in, we pour ourselves into the case

and we kind of read over the transcripts

and try and talk to the parties involved, and just kind of

think about what possible claims we can make.

We're looking for any possible avenue that we can

to get a stay of execution.

Among the evidence is the original interview

conducted in the McConnell Prison by investigator Bill Lazenby.

I've interviewed Offender Pruett

I would say around 6-6:30 that evening, same evening.

We had received information

that a young white male had assaulted Officer Nagle.

Another inmate witnessed something earlier that day

between Officer Nagle and Offender Pruett.

A few hours before his murder, Daniel Nagle had written

a disciplinary report on Robert Pruett for breaking prison rules.

You're not allowed to enter this rec yard with any bag, food.

Offender Pruett was attempting to go onto the rec yard with a sandwich.

Officer Nagle refused his entrance.

He became belligerent to Officer Nagle.

That was the purpose of the disciplinary which was written.

I did ask him if he had assaulted Officer Nagle and he denied that.

I asked him if he had had a relationship with Officer Nagle

earlier that day that would have caused him to become angry.

He denied that.

He was in denial of anything we would ask him.

Some of the witnesses were telling us that he was either sitting on him

or standing on him, and when he'd hit him his body would tremble,

because he was hitting him so hard with the shank.

The murder weapon was recovered by the investigators.

And next to Daniel Nagle's body

they found the ripped pieces of Robert Pruett's report.

The disciplinary report torn up, laying there at the crime scene.

That's what led to the ultimate conclusion that we went with.

All the evidence we could gather led us to Offender Pruett.

I think any time you see the body of the victim,

it makes the crime very real.

This was a real person, you know,

there's, you know, a real impact from his death.

But you also can't let it bog you down, like,

the job we're doing is to save Robert

and it's terrible what happened to the, you know, Officer Nagle,

but that doesn't impact the job we need to do on Robert.

Once a crisis case comes into our lives, we are trying to do one thing

and one thing only, and that is to stop the execution from occurring.

We will look into a case to see, are there avenues to do that?

By looking at...

The team starts work on one of the most common appeals used

to try to get a death sentence reduced to life without parole.

It's called a mitigation claim.

Evidence about our inmate that should have been presented at trial.

You will be looking for a variety of things, such as...

a history of poverty, neglect,

drug abuse in the family, violence,

physical and even sexual abuse.

If the jury had known about this mitigating evidence,

they would not have sentenced our inmate to death.

CAR DOOR BEEPS

We are going to go to visit Marcia Pruett,

which is Robert Pruett's mother.

She lives in the Fifth Ward of Houston.

It's definitely not a good area.

You don't want to be there at night without a gun.

Definitely don't want to be there in a nice car.

-Here.

-Yeah, here we are.

In the course of learning about Robert Pruett's life,

we've discovered that Sam, his dad, was convicted

of armed robbery and was imprisoned

until Robert was about six or seven years old.

We think there was violence in the household as well as drugs.

DOG BARKS

-Hey, Marcia, how are you doing?

-All right.

-Can we come in and talk?

-Yeah.

Hi, puppies!

'Marcia's been a little bit difficult to speak to.

'She, I think, is embarrassed a little bit about her family's past.

'And so, she's hidden a lot of information from us.'

-So I know growing up, your family didn't have a lot to eat.

-Yeah.

Were there ever times

when you didn't have running water and electricity?

-A lot of times.

-A lot of times.

SHE COUGHS

DOG BARKS

So, when growing up,

the drugs in the house were weed and cocaine, right?

Right. That was it.

And so, who smoked cocaine?

-Sam and I did.

-You and Sam?

-And so, I mean...

-I know, I don't really want to talk about it...

I know, I know it's, like, hard to kind of talk to us,

but, like, Lauren and I really aren't judging you.

'This is very, very, very private,

'kind of intimate information about'

really rough family history stuff.

And we're asking as almost a total outsider for as much information

as we can about the goriest, dirtiest,

the most terrible things that they can remember about their family.

And, like, is there anything that you can think of, like,

any sexual abuse, like, sort of physical abuse...?

-Not really.

-No.

'In order for her to say stuff that helps us,'

she has to really kind of throw herself under the bus.

You know, she has to say all the bad stuff that she did

and, you know, actually nobody wants to do that.

And we just, you know, like always, we really appreciate your help.

-And if you think of anything...

-If I can think of anything.

-You call us.

-You call us. It is OK.

Like, when I say that we're available, we're available.

All the time, we're available all the time.

To convince Professor Dow,

Kelly needs more evidence about Robert's childhood.

So she digs deeper into the Pruett family history.

In order for our mitigation claims to be successful,

we really have to get specific information.

So what we really need is more witness statements

from family members.

Right now, I'm headed to Troy's house.

Troy is Robert's cousin.

And because Troy was around so much when Robert was younger,

he becomes really, really key for unlocking a lot of that information.

Come here, Karma. Come here!

These are my cousin Michelle's

two youngest daughters.

-They're so cute.

-This is Karma and Kayla.

Kayla? My mom's name is Kayla.

That's a cool name. Karma is a good name too.

It means good things will happen.

-Don't listen to her.

-Don't listen to me, I'm saying good things!

If it wasn't for bad luck, we wouldn't have any.

I want a swimming pool.

These kids are the next generation,

are going to do a lot better.

Make sure they have a place to live, something to eat, you know.

They don't have to go dumpster-diving for food.

OK, you all go play.

So you mentioned dumpster-diving.

When we lived back in Houston, when me and Robert were younger,

me and Robert would go, like, to the dumpsters behind HEB and Wal-Mart,

and stuff like that.

Do you have any memory at all of Robert being, you know,

physically abused?

I have tons of memory of Robert

being physically abused by his father.

So, like, what happened?

There's this one instance when Robert was...

about as young as one of the little girls that's here,

he didn't want to smoke weed and his dad kept,

every time he told his dad no,

that he won't smoke, his dad would call him a pussy.

And finally, one day, Sam had enough of Robert telling him no,

he didn't want to smoke,

and grabbed him and started beating him and telling him,

"Look, you're either going to smoke this or I'm going to beat your butt."

And so he started, that's when he started smoking.

'Most of the people when they speak to you, obviously,

'also kind of want to save Robert's life as well.'

They're his family, they love him, they don't want to see him executed.

And so, you kind of have to guard against their bias

and make their statements trustworthy

by having just as many statements that kind of agree with each other.

If you have ten statements that all say the same thing

by different people living in different areas at different times,

it becomes just significantly more persuasive.

Did you ever see any physical abuse that happened in the family?

Did Sam ever hit Robert?

Quite often. Sam was very mean.

You know, we all lived in fear because of Sam.

I was afraid he'd kill me and anybody around me all the time.

And he would tell me, "Aunt Christine, the man beat me,"

and he would come to me

and he would be wounded for being hit over and over.

Around 12, 11,

he was smoking crack and shit

and I know cos I smoked it with him.

Is there anything that you can think of,

like, growing up, any sexual abuse?

They had a couple of older men that would come around the trailers.

And they would come to "pick the kids up", per se.

Did you see them specifically take Robert?

I know, because Robert would come out and...say,

"Don't ask me what they were doing."

Part of you is just...

so terribly sad to find that another person grew up in that kind

of environment and you realise that they had no chance at life

because of what happened to them there.

And the other part of you is happy because it just,

it's more evidence to make a stronger claim,

which is more persuasive to a court,

and it's something that can be used to save their life.

So even though they had this terrible, terrible upbringing,

it could be turned around and used to benefit them, which is,

ultimately, all that we're trying to do.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this meal we're about to eat.

Bless it that it might nourish our bodies. Amen.

You know what I heard?

You know on the news, how it came out a couple of years ago

-that they cancelled the last meals for death-row inmates.

-What?

-The special meals...?

-Yeah, the last meals that they get, you know,

which I...which I always thought was kind of sad.

-Would you have any appetite?

-You know how I feel, Kelly.

If somebody has been convicted,

why should they be given any special privileges?

It's not about being given privileges

so much as not treating them like animals.

Well, what about the victim?

You're right.

Families and children's lives have been destroyed just summarily

and then suddenly, we fall all over ourselves

worrying about the guy that did it.

And what special privileges he should receive?

But the case we've been working on a lot, at the clinic,

-is this guy named Robert Pruett.

-Uh-huh.

He had, like, a truly terrible childhood growing up.

You know, sexual abuse and physical abuse and poverty,

like "dumpster-diving to get food" poor.

On top of that, we uncovered like this back story where his dad,

when his dad came out of prison, when Robert was like maybe seven,

eight years old, they started giving him drugs.

Why does that give them a pass?

Lots of people grow up just like that that aren't murderers.

I mean, are we saying if you were raised in a good home

and good standards and good education, and you murder somebody,

that somehow you are more guilty?

If you grow up in an environment where your dad's first reaction

is to stab somebody, it's got to...

That's fine, but I don't see why that's an excuse.

You've destroyed somebody else's life and families.

And then to suddenly stand there and think,

"Oh, I should be given some kind of consideration because I...

"you know, had to eat out of a dumpster," I don't,

I'm sorry, I just don't believe that.

Before the team can finish their investigation,

they have one final, difficult problem.

How to explain why Pruett was in prison in the first place,

without undermining their case.

We're going on a journey through Robert's life,

from the beginning to the end.

In a lot of ways, this is where that journey ends

because this is the last place that Robert ever was as a free person.

'A man has been stabbed to death in a fight at a trailer park.'

'Three men attacked resident Ray Yarborough after an argument.'

'Ray Yarbrough was stabbed multiple times and died from his injuries.'

Robert first got put in prison because he was convicted under

the law of parties for murdering his neighbour, Ray Yarborough.

And what the law of parties is, it's kind of a law in Texas,

that, if you're part of a group of people that are committing a crime,

even if you don't actually commit the crime yourself,

then you're just as guilty as the people that did commit it.

Ray Yarborough lived in a trailer next to the Pruetts.

On the day of his death, Robert had a fierce argument with him

and threatened to kill him.

Later that night, they ended up fighting.

I was asleep on my mother's couch in the trailer.

Robert comes to wake me up. He says, "Hey, Ray's home, Ray's home."

Well, I'm in bed asleep. This is about 10 o'clock at night.

My oldest son came in and woke me up,

said, "Robert's outside with Ray," which was our neighbour.

Robert was only 15 at that time.

So when I got up, I go outside to check this dude.

And my dad was struggling then.

Time I get over there, I've pulled him up off my dad

and me and Ray started going at it.

He gets up on top of me.

My dad, he's coming round the trailer and everything

to pull him up off of me.

But as he pulls him up off of me, stabbing him.

I don't know where the knife came from, you know.

But my dad had a knife.

It was a steak knife that was laying on the counter.

When I come out of the house,

I picked it up and stuck it in my back pocket.

For self-defence!

Ray Yarborough died from multiple stab wounds.

Sam Pruett was sentenced to life in prison for the killing.

Steven Pruett got 40 years.

Robert had turned 16 by the time the case came to trial.

He was sentenced as an adult and given 99 years.

When somebody's already in prison for murder,

it kind of makes your mitigation investigation a bit more difficult

cos you have to counter that.

And it makes it easier for the state to prove their case.

You know, they think, "He's killed someone before,

"then he definitely deserves the death penalty now."

So it just makes it harder at every stage.

All of the mitigation evidence has been sent to Professor Dow.

It's time for his verdict.

I would say that the evidence in Pruett's case

was some of the most compelling,

strongest evidence that I've seen in more than 20 years of doing this.

Even when you think, this was for all intents

and purposes a kid who was sentenced to

life in prison for a murder that he didn't even commit himself,

that he was present for, that was committed by his abusive father.

And in this case, if the jury had heard this evidence,

Pruett would unquestionably have been sentenced to life in prison,

rather than a death sentence.

We're going to bundle it all up and we're going to write

it into a legal claim

and we're going to go file it in federal court.

-See you later.

-Definitely.

BAGPIPES PLAY AMAZING GRACE

Today, we remember the brave men and women,

our co-workers in corrections,

who have given their very lives in the service of the people

of our state and our country.

Daniel wasn't just a corrections officer. He was my little brother.

He was my baby.

He was giving and kind and he was always there for his kids.

You never saw him without at least one of them.

He cared for everybody around him.

Their lives had a purpose.

They left a mark and their memory will live on.

That morning, when he got up and got ready,

I'd just had Rebecca, so I was in the bed round about the time he was

getting ready to walk out the door.

And he went to go check on Rebecca because she was starting to wake

up, she was fussing, and he brought her to me and gave us both a kiss

and said he would see us later.

Told us he loved us.

And that was the last time.

Whenever my father passed away,

I was roughly two and a half months old,

so I don't really remember much.

The first memory I have involving him,

I do remember being at his funeral.

I think he looks a lot like Daniel.

Daniel Nagle's children have been raised by their grandparents.

Michael and Rebecca have had a very hard life.

They first lose their dad

and then, their mother gets...on drugs.

She...is indisposed of right now, she's in jail.

And if this had not happened to Daniel, Crystal wouldn't be in jail.

I hold Robert Pruett responsible for everything that's happened,

for the road that my life went down, the kids not having their daddy.

I hold Robert Pruett very responsible.

I don't know how responsible he holds himself and that's what's sad.

He carved out his own path. It was his decision.

If he found a way to weasel his self out the legal system,

and...out of the death penalty...

..that would not be right because

if you take a life, you more or less just dug your own grave.

I don't think I deserve to die for something I didn't do.

The evidence against me in this case was inmate testimony.

Everybody... These inmates...

There was, like, five inmates

and each one of them had a different story.

There was absolutely no physical evidence

connecting me to this crime at all. You know?

From what I've read about the crime scene,

it was a messy crime scene, like there was a murder weapon,

there was evidence everywhere, a stabbed victim...

But no physical link between me and this crime whatsoever.

People frequently ask me

whether I believe that my clients who claim innocence are innocent.

And I'm going to tell you about Mr Pruett,

what I tell them about almost all of my clients,

which is I don't know. I wasn't there.

What I know is, the guard was stabbed to death

and Pruett didn't have any of the guard's blood on his clothes,

he didn't have any of the guard's blood on his body,

he didn't have any of the guard's blood in his hair.

If I had been a juror in Pruett's case, there was no possible way that

I could ever have voted to convict him on the basis of this evidence.

Evidence shows that 3-5% of all people in prison did not

commit the crime for which they were convicted.

There are documented cases where inmates have been sentenced to death

and then evidence has proven that they did not commit the crime.

The team are working on another appeal for Robert Pruett,

DNA testing, which they hope could cast doubt on his conviction.

You end up with eight.

Two pieces.

Right?

Robert Pruett claims he didn't kill Officer Nagle

and never touched the disciplinary report found at the crime scene.

The team want it re-tested for DNA.

In the ten years since Robert's trial,

science has evolved tremendously,

so all kinds of testing is available that wasn't previously available.

And now I'm touching the back of this, the front of this,

so now I've touched four.

Whoever tore up the report should have left

traces of their DNA on the paper.

Up-to-date tests might detect it.

The state is trying to make a case that Robert murdered

Officer Nagle because of the disciplinary report.

They found that motive because the report was torn over Nagle's body.

So if we have this report tested

and there's somebody else's DNA on it,

then it shows either at a minimum that somebody else was there,

but if nothing else, it definitely refutes the proof

and it makes it look a lot more like Robert was innocent.

If we do testing on the report

and find DNA that didn't belong to either Pruett or Nagle,

and then to match it to somebody

who we can make a plausible argument was responsible,

then it destroys the state's theory that somehow the scattered

remains of the report are what demonstrate Pruett did it.

So it's 7am and we're in the car, headed to Beeville,

so that we can file an appeal Robert's behalf.

At this stage in litigation, every second counts

and so we have to make the three-hour

drive at seven in the morning so we can get there by ten,

so the judge has all day to at least look at the motion

and hopefully rule on it by the end of the day Friday.

Right now, Robert only has a few days left to live and if we can

prolong his life by even 60 more days, or a year,

then we've done our job.

I want to file this motion.

Robert Pruett's crisis appeals are now complete.

But before every execution, there is one final roll of the dice.

It's called clemency.

The state governor has the power to reduce any death sentence

to life without parole.

But he's only done it once in 13 years.

So Kelly tries to find anyone she can to help plead for Robert's life.

"Dear sir, Mr Pruett's execution date has been set for May 21st 2013.

"I feel very strongly that he should have his sentence commuted to

"life in prison without the possibility of parole."

When we're in kind of crisis stage of cases,

things happen kind of suddenly,

and you can never quite predict where help will come from.

"I know that lots of people would think

"that I would support this execution because of what he did to my brother.

"But that is not how I feel".

When Kelly called me

and asked me to write a letter about Robert Pruett, I was so angry.

I wanted retribution, I really did.

I wanted to go down there and strangle him myself,

that he could have done this. You know, what was he thinking?

And then I realised, "This boy has family.

"And you want to murder him,

"and you want me to be happy that you're murdering him

"and making a hole in their family like the hole that's in ours."

Robert Pruett might not actually deserve our help,

but I still believe that he is a person

and I know that he's done some pretty bad things,

but I just don't think it's fair.

I mean, two wrongs don't make a right.

"This man destroyed a family,

"but sentencing him to death destroys another family, his own.

"I cannot help but think about this man's mother.

"I know from experience the hurt that will fill her eyes

"and the sorrow that will become her expression".

"Please do not kill Mr Pruett,

"even though he is guilty of the crime of murder.

-"Sincerely, Della Nagle".

-"Sincerely, Juliana".

In any crisis case,

it always reaches that point where you've done everything you can.

You've played all your cards,

and you just have to cross your fingers and hope.

And that's always kind of a terrible feeling.

If I'm able to be there at the execution,

I would like to be present.

It'll bring closure.

They have convicted him of the murder of my father.

I say that he deserves his punishment because of his actions.

I've spoken to many guys who have made the trip

from Polunsky Unit to the Walls Unit to be executed,

and that have come within minutes of being executed.

So I pretty much know the whole process.

They will take everything from you.

All you take is just some state clothes, and that's it.

I heard they even take your glasses from you.

It's like a 40-minute drive from Livingston to Huntsville.

And you'll be looking at the forest, you know, the water.

But if they take my glasses, I'm going to have a hard time seeing,

because I don't see at a distance.

'I feel like I know him at this point.

'If we lost and he was executed, it would hurt.'

The worst thing that we can do is exaggerate

the likelihood that we are going to succeed.

I believe that giving false hope to people is cruel.

When you get to the Walls Unit, they've got all these big guards

who tell you, "We're going to take the cuffs off.

"If there's any problems, we'll give you problems.

"If you stay calm, we'll treat you like a human.

"We're going to treat you decently."

The implication is "..Till we kill you like a dog."

When you get to the gurney and your final moments,

the warden gives you an opportunity to speak.

And then you can just give some kind of signal that you're ready,

and then they kill you.

-We found out today we have a 60-day reprieve.

-(That's awesome!)

No, this is really good news. It's really good news.

I thought this might be good news.

She said, "I can't tell you on the phone."

I was like, "Come on, 8.30! It's after 8.30, where is she?"

Oh, man, my head is going round and round.

Phew.

Everyone was e-mailing and everyone was so excited.

We're all going to go up on Monday and tell Robert.

We think he might already know, but he might not,

so at least we ought to break the news to him ourselves on Monday.

-That'll make him feel better too.

-Yeah.

Oh, I can sleep better. Finally!

Wow.

That is so awesome.

That was the best feeling in the world. It was...

I don't know, I don't think there's a word

for how good it felt to deliver that news.

You know, in this line of work,

even the small relationship I've had with it,

it's just all bad all the time,

like fighting with courts and prosecutors

and fighting to get information you need and to get results.

And it's just such an amazing feeling

to finally have some good news to tell somebody for once.

The moment that I heard that I got a stay,

I was like, "I've got a stay!"

And I went to the door and I let everybody know, "I got a stay!"

Robert's stay of execution

is to allow for further DNA testing in the case.

The Nagle family has been told this process could take up to a year.

When she told me that he wasn't going to be executed,

first I was like...

SHE SIGHS

And then I was like, "So now we have to think about it longer."

I'm glad that he's not being executed so soon.

They're still giving him a chance.

But I don't know how they're going to try to make him innocent.

I mean, it was pretty straightforward evidence

in the first place.

I always knew that the right guy was in jail.

I always knew it was the right person.

And now they tell me that it might not be the right person.

And my question is, "Why are you telling me this now?"

Robert Pruett has to live with his conscience.

When he sleeps at night, I hope he has nightmares. I'm sure he does.

He's still rotting. I mean...

Is there anything I can do? No.

Can I just keep on living my life? Yes.

I think that doing the work

requires a certain emotional resilience

that is common to death penalty lawyers,

at least common to death penalty lawyers in Texas.

For every reprieve that you get,

you have nine clients who are executed, or something like that.

And so, if you're going to stay in this line of work,

as a matter of survival, you really narrow your emotional range.

You know, you don't go out celebrating when you get a stay,

because the flip side of going out celebrating when you get a stay

is that you jump off a building every time you don't.

If every time you lose a client,

you can't get out of bed for a week or a month,

you just really need to find something else to do.

Hi. Is this Jennifer Garza? My name's Kelly Hickman.

Kelly's last crisis case is defending gang member Robert Garza.

REPORTER: 'Four women have been shot dead tonight

'in what police are calling a gang-related killing.'

'Garza was a member of the Tri-City Bomber street gang.'

'Tri-City Bomber are one of the most violent gangs.'

'Members of the Tri-City Bombers ambushed...'

'..shot multiple times when driving home from work.'

..Casings were fired into that vehicle.

It was a horrible crime scene.

I wasn't there. I didn't kill nobody.

'The jury decided he was involved. They sentenced him to death.

'Justice is scheduled to come to Robert Garza

'in the form of a lethal injection on September 19th'.

The team are trying to mount a mitigation appeal for Garza,

but with execution just days away, they receive some bad news.

We were denied yesterday afternoon,

and we were denied in the worst possible way.

They basically just sent me a letter,

simply informing the trial judge

that they are not going to rehear the case.

That happened yesterday at about four o'clock or so.

I think the likelihood of identifying another claim

is so close to zero that I don't want to be keeping his hopes alive.

And if, miraculously, we discover a claim,

we'll file it without even telling anybody,

so as far as they're concerned,

nothing is pending and they won't get their hopes up.

If you need anybody to talk to,

of course, you got me, you got Dow, you got Cassandra.

We're all there.

This is how most of our cases end, I'm afraid to say.

-It's all ruined.

-Yeah.

The crisis cases, anyway.

The team advise Robert Garza's family to prepare for the worst.

They travel to the small town in Texas

where all executions take place.

Huntsville.

It was a very difficult visit today with Robert,

because you want to be able to show your love to him,

and there's not enough time.

There's not enough time

in sharing what your feelings are for him.

Very smiley, saying bye.

Like any other visit.

We just hope.

We pray...

..that things do change between today and tomorrow. Six o'clock.

'Robert "Bones" Garza will be executed tonight.

'The Tri-City Bomber was convicted for his role

'in the killings of four women back in 2002.

'He was also linked...'

Execution days are kind of rough.

The atmosphere in the clinic gets really tense,

because everyone's kind of waiting to see what will happen

and just not really sure how the day's going to play out.

Hoping for the best, expecting the worst

and just bracing themselves for that.

Everyone kind of retreats into themselves

to handle whatever needs to be handled appropriately.

'In one hour, Texas prison officials will have the green light'

to execute one of Texas' most notorious gang members.

The execution of Robert Garza is scheduled

for some time after six tonight in Huntsville.

Kirk Chaisson joins us with the latest on the story.

Garza has filed a barrage

of last-minute appeals over the last couple of days.

They've all been rejected at the state level,

but each appeal automatically gets kicked up to the US Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court decides they want to stay out of it,

Garza's execution today moves forward.

Members of the Garza family join campaigners outside the death house

as they wait for the Supreme Court's final ruling.

Prison officials tell us

the death warrant for Robert Garza becomes valid at 6pm.

His execution could come any time after that.

As the deadline approaches,

Kelly gets a call from Robert Garza's wife.

Hey, what news do you have? I can go and find Jeff.

INAUDIBLE REPLY

You want me to put you on the phone with him? OK, so tell me.

What's going on?

'Hold on, I'll call you right back, OK?'

OK, bye.

It's Jennifer. She says they have really good news for Garza.

I don't know what's going on.

It's a totally frustrating feeling, knowing that time is passing,

knowing that the execution is impending,

and to get a phone call from Bobby's wife,

who doesn't want to talk to me

and is trying to talk to other people

and won't tell me what's going on or why it's going on,

I just want to know what's happening

because I want to help, and I can't help.

'There's a lot of interest in Bobby's execution

'all over the state.'

Reports are coming in of a hold-up at the Supreme Court.

'I can give you the good news

'that things are pending before the Supreme Court...'

If the Supreme Court decides they want to weigh in

and consider one of these appeals,

there could be a last-minute stay, a delay in Garza's execution today.

It's kind of crazy

that the Supreme Court hasn't ruled yet, though.

You could say that it means they're actually looking at it.

But for all we know, they're just, you know, dragging out time

and then it will just be harder for him and his family.

Did somebody walk across the street?

We'll know what's going to happen

when we see the people walk from this building into that building.

They go up the stairs there.

All right, bye.

It's gone through.

TEXT ALERT

Jeff just says there's nothing.

Apparently, there was a big stir going on

at the Governor's office, and it didn't amount to anything.

So...it's done.

WOMEN SOB

That's my mom!

Oh, my God. It's from Ray.

"As I post this, Robert Garza is being executed."

I'm here outside the Walls Unit in downtown Huntsville,

where at 8.41pm tonight, Robert Garza was pronounced dead

after having received a lethal injection.

Approximately ten minutes goes by in stunned silence

inside that room while I and the other members of the media

are just feet away from the members of Garza's family,

who are racked with emotion and anguish as they watch him slip away.

Again, at 8.41pm tonight,

Robert Garza was pronounced dead by lethal injection.

In Huntsville, Kirk Chaisson, Channel 5 News at 10.

All right?

You would think that with time, it would get easier to deal with it,

or at least you'd learn to deal with it, but it actually gets worse.

I think it does get worse.

Joy, relief, a little bit of apprehension about what comes next.

Be proud of your hard work, your sacrifices.

Be proud of the decision you made to go to law school.

# O say can you see

# By the dawn's early light

# O say

# Does that star-spangled banner yet wave

# O'er the land of the free

# And the home of the brave? #