To Free the Truth

Sam Pruett in the early 90s

My father was raised in penal institutions. He was placed in reform school at age 10, and at 17, he ‘graduated’ to the penitentiary. He later spent several terms in Texas and Missouri prisons before killing Ray. 

As I’ve written, violence is the order of the day in here. You are conditioned to respond aggressively to any perceived threat. My father was a very violent man from this sort of conditioning. Anytime someone appeared to challenge his manhood, he became aggressive. He used to scare the hell out of me when he’d go into a rage on someone. From 1986 to 1995, he stabbed 3 different people on 3 separate occassions. Each time we had to move in the middle of the night so he wouldn’t go to jail. There wasn’t any running away from Ray’s murder though.

My point is that prison conditions people to become aggressive and violent with my father being the perfect illustration. After a couple of years inside, I started noticing my father in me. A part of me was proud that I had respect amongst the convicts, that everyone knew I would not only fight, but that I was a force to be reckoned with… It had become almost instinctive to be aggressive when I felt disrespected. I wouldn’t tolerate violations of my personal space or boundaries. 

The day that I realized that I was becoming my father was a depressing one. Don’t get me wrong, I love him and always will. In my heart, I know he’s sorry things happened the way they did, and I know he’d give anything to change it all. But, he was a product of his environment–one mean son of a bitch. I didn’t want to be that way; it brought tears just thinking about it. But, to renounce violence in prison is equivalent to losing all respect. To lose all respect means to concede to rape, robbery, and the whims of the predators.

As much as attention as I paid towards education and self development, surviving each day was my primary focus. At age 16, I was sent to the Garza West Unit, a maximum security intake facility that housed all ages of inmates. The cell block I was placed in was filled with men convicted of every crime from robbery to murder, many of which had been inside multiple times.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard, seen on t.v., or read about, nothing can prepare you for prison life. All of my father’s horror stories only worked to intensify my fears. As I stepped off the bus, my heart was speeding. Sweat poured down my face. As I entered my cell block, everyone’s eyes were on me, checking out the fresh meat, yet I tried not to convey my fear. Any sign of weakness would be exploited, I was taught. I had to be strong, stand tall, and at all costs, fight back or I’d be eaten alive by the predators. No way could I let that happen. You can’t ask for protection from the guards either because most will tell you to be a man and send you right back to the cell block, then you’re branded a snitch. That’s the last thing you want. A snitch is at the bottom of the hierarchy; they’re treated even worse than child molesters. 

My first day on Garza West Unit a young, muscle-bound black guy in his early 20s approached me, “Say, white boy, you gon’ fight, fuck, or bust a sixty?” 

Translation: I had the choice to fight him, let him have sex with me, or give him $60 worth of commisary. His gold tooth sparkled as he smiled. He clearly thought he had easy prey. He was surprised when my fist landed on his face, but he quickly recovered and sidestepped my next swing before schooling me in the art of prison boxing.  He hammered me, but I got up every time I fell down. That was the key. Had I stayed down and not fought back, I’d have belonged to him. By showing heart and fighting, I gained some respect. Of course, respect is something you have to maintain over and again. But, it’s much easier in here if you have it…unless, of course, you enjoy being sodomized against your will amongst other horrible acts.

Nearly everyone who hears my story asks, “How could they give you 99 years when you weren’t the murder and you were just 15 when it happened?” Unfortunately, that’s a question that will probably never be answered. A jury isn’t required to explain why it votes a certain way. Apparently, they thought I was beyond rehabilitation, that the solution was to throw me away forever.

Think about this for a second. Society places countless restrictions on minors because they aren’t mature enough to make certain decisions. Studies have shown that the parts of the brain related to cognitive reasoning don’t fully develop until the mid-20s. At 15, I wasn’t old enough to decide to be outside alone after 10 p.m. watching R rated movies alone, smoke, vote, get a tattoo, own a gun, drink, or even drive, yet I was mature enough to make a decision to impact the rest of my life? That simply unfathomable, especially considering I wasn’t the actual murderer. My first reaction to my sentence was complete and utter shock. The district attorney only asked for 40 years. My brother thought I’d get half of whatever the jury gave him because of my age and the fact that he played a considerably larger role in Ray’s death.

After the shock wore off, denial crept it. It was incomprehensible that I would spend the rest of my life in prison for something my dad did. I began thinking my conviction and sentence would soon be overturned by some reasonable judge, that the people who run the system wouldn’t let me waste away. I started going to the law library to study the law and fight for my life. Every jailhouse lawyer I told my story to assured me things would work out and I’d “give that time back.”

In many ways, being arrested, convicted and sentenced to 99 years awakened me. For starters, I was off drugs for the first time in 8 years and reality truly sunk in. I’d been a selfish, reckless screw-up most of my life. I thought about the crimes I’d committed and the people I’d hurt. My stomach would turn when I thought about the people who’d return to their homes to find them robbed and trashed; I felt dirty knowing I was perpetuating a disease by selling drugs; I still tear up to this day when I think of Ray’s wife and kids. I’m disgusted with the person I was back then.

GED 01/07 with Mom who is holding my niece

So, I made every effort to change. Not only because I wanted to show the courts I could change–which I partly did–but more so because I wanted to be a better person. The first thing I did upon arriving in prison was request to be placed in education programs. By January of 1996, I had my GED and several months later, I had my plumbing vocational. Next, I signed up for college academics. My free time was mostly spent reading. I read lots of self help books and also read a lot of novels. Prior to my incarceration, I’d read one book. To date, that number has exceeded 3500. An old convict told me that the penitentiary doesn’t rehabilitate anyone. You’ve got to do it yourself. I took that to heart. In every way, I worked to better myself and grow as a human being. In my heart, I believed I would one day regain my freedom and so I had to prepare for life in the free world.

This is an article written by Robert and published in Prison City: Life with the Death Penalty in Huntsville, TX by Ruth Massingill and Ardyth Broadrick Sohn. It was published in 2007; the article was written, though, in 2005. The article begins on page 164.

Those of us living on Texas’ death row are presented with many challenges and obstacles in our everyday lives. We expend an enormous amount of energy fighting for our lives and constantly struggle to cope with the stress involved with being separated from our loved ones, not to mention the loss of our freedom. There are officers who seem to think that their job is to punish us, rather than maintain the security of the institution; suffice it to say that these rogues are a constant reminder of exactly where we are…. These are the obvious challenges we face here on the row. I’d like to expose a problem that is more subtle, yet can be equally detrimental to our psychological well-being.

As many of you probably know, the living conditions on Texas’ death row are virtually identical to those of TDCJ’ administrative segregation, (ad.seg.) which was designed by a team of criminal psychologists. The objective was to create a behavioral modification system that punished recalcitrant inmates with the harshest living conditions, (level 3 status) then rewarded their good behavior with somewhat better living conditions (level 1 status). Eventually the inmate would be reintegrated back into the general prison population. This system wasn’t designed to house inmates long-term, yet TDCJ has misused it by keeping people in ad. seg. for decades and forcing death row to live under its guidelines as long as we have a death sentence.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the environment in which we live, please allow me to briefly elaborate: We are locked in single-man cells (10ft. x 7ft.) for 23 hours a day, with 1 hour of recreation per day, depending on your level status. Anytime we leave our cells we must be restrained with handcuffs and escorted by 2 officers. All visits are non-contact and recreation occurs in a single-man cage, alone. All physical contact is strictly prohibited… If you are level 1 status you can utilize the commissary (given that you have someone in the freeworld that sends money to your account. We are totally dependent on outside help to use the commissary) to purchase an Am/Fm radio, shoes, fan, coffee pot, typewriter, hygiene, writing supplies, and various food items. Levels 2 and 3 aren’t allowed any electrical appliances (except a fan) or any food items. We aren’t allowed televisions, microwaves, access to swimming pools or any other absurd things like that, as the media would have the general public believe! If I’m not mistaken, you can read the “Ad. Seg./Death Row Plan” on TDCJ’ s website, where all the rules/guidelines applicable to us are listed.

If there is an official name for the debilitating disease that often arises out of these living conditions, I am unaware of it. I like to refer to what torments many of us as Ground Hog Day Syndrome. How many of you have seen the movie “Ground Hog Day” with Bill Murray? That’s the one where Mr. Murray keeps waking up on Ground Hog Day only to relive that day over and over again. In a sense, this is basically what most of us are experiencing in that we find ourselves repeating the same old things, day after day. While the movie is highly entertaining and absolutely hilarious, those of us on the row (or ad.seg.) who fall victim to Ground Hog Day Syndrome are in danger of developing severe psychological disorders
 
The environment in which we live is geared towards sensory deprivation. The scenery never changes for us: cold steel bars, imposing white walls, dirty concrete floors, and whatever view we have from our 4f. x 3in. windows, which usually isn’t anything to write home about! Our options for action each day are limited to recreating, writing, reading, creating art, listening to the radio (if you are level 1!) and conversing with each other through our doors (this type of communication only contributes to our diminishing social skills since we aren’t face-to-face with the person we are conversating with.) We can also play such games as chess or dungeons–n-dragons by calling out our plays through the door.
 
It is so easy to find yourself trapped by a fixed schedule that can best be described as tediously monotonous, simply because we are so restricted as to what we can do. We’re lulled into a routine that repeats itself for months and even years at a time. Our every action soon becomes mechanical and our behavior becomes more reflective of that of a robot than a human being. I sometimes get my days mixed up, thinking that I did something on a certain day, when in fact it was a week before. Life becomes a blur, creativity diminishes, depression can creep in, some fall prey to psychotic behavior, and others attempt suicide (BTW – dropping your appeals is suicide!) The adverse affects of Ground Hog Day Syndrome are often lethal.
 
The other day (I think!) I asked someone that I hadn’t seen in awhile how he was doing. He just stared at me somberly and replied, “Dude, it’s the same fucking thing every day. I wake up, go to rec., eat chow, write a little, read a little, talk shit, go to sleep, then wake up and repeat the same damn thing. I’m burnt out!”
Most of us here can truly empathize with that.
 
To further illustrate just how destructive Ground Hog Day Syndrome can be, I’d like to share a very personal story with you: Before coming to death row I spent a couple of years in ad. seg. A close friend of mine, who I’d spent some time with in general population, was moved in a cell next to me on the Conally Unit. We passed the time by reminiscing about old days and we even shared our dreams, hopes and aspirations. A few months of this and -predictably – we settled into a routine. Then one day my friend came to his door and told everyone that he didn’t want to talk to any of us and that we should leave him alone. Huh? He rejected every attempt I made to communicate with him by ignoring me. He refused to accept his mail, didn’t go to rec. or shower, and once they called him for a visit that he refused. Maybe a month or so of this went on and he began talking to himself. Finally, he covered himself in his own feces and started slashing his arms up with a razor…… As I watched them carry my old friend away, covered in feces and blood, I felt a profound sense of sorrow and loss. It was very difficult for me to comprehend what had transpired right before my very eyes. This was my first experience with how psychologically damaging this environment can be and I’m positive that what happened to my friend was the result of Ground Hog Day Syndrome evolving into psychosis.
 
From what I’ve heard, there are guys here on the Polunsky Unit who’ve gone insane since leaving Ellis Unit, where death row used to be housed. We’ve lost a few to suicide since I arrived on the row in 2002 and many others have attempted it. I’ m no psychologist, but undoubtedly Ground Hog Day Syndrome played a role in some of these cases.
 
Some of you may have friends or family here who are experiencing Ground Hog Day Syndrome and you’re wondering what can be done? Once again, I’m not a mental health expert, but I have found a few things that seem to work for me and I’d be happy to share them with you.
 
First of all, I think that it is imperative that we create variety in our schedules. Beware of falling into a routine that is repetitious and make every effort to mix-up your daily activities so that you aren’t repeating the same routine for any extended period of time. Also, if there are activities that you don’t do, such as playing chess or dungeons-n-dragons, then try them out every now and then. It might not be your cup of tea, but anything helps so long as it breaks the monotony!
 
Obviously, the love and emotional support we receive from those in the free world helps immensely. A visit from someone who cares can offer a much needed respite from this hell-hole, enabling us to leave the pod for awhile to be with the people we love and care about. Receiving a letter also provides a wonderful escape from this place, reminding us that someone out there is thinking about us! Never forget that you people in the free world, who are there for us, showing us love and compassion, keep us going. Without the support of you all, many of us would be utterly lost. With your help we can overcome Ground Hog Day Syndrome.

Peering through the window in my cell last night, I watched an electrical storm bring light and life to an open field just beyond the prison grounds. It was an awe-inspiring spectacle to behold and it filled me with a sense of tranquillity that has eluded me for quite some time. As I watched the breath-takingly bright flashes of light streak across the sky, I found myself reminiscing back to a time when I was just a small boy, no older than 5. My mother, brother, sister, and I were all living in Houston when a major storm rolled in (hurricane Alicia? This was like ‘ 83 – ‘ 84) We were all huddled closely together, watching the violent winds whip the tall pines around like mere twigs. We were dirt poor (my mother being a single parent at the time, trying to raise three kids on welfare) and I’d already experienced much adversity in my short life, but I felt a strong sense of security with my family that night, despite the storms in our lives. My mother never let my siblings and I forget that she loved us.
 
As I fondly reflected on the innocence of my youth, the lightning illuminating the razor-wired fences brought me back from my reverie. It’s usually quite noisy on this cellblock at that time of night, but as I watched the storm I noticed that it was peacefully quiet. Maybe I wasn’t the only one gazing out the window, remembering a time long past? Every now and then mother nature does her part in helping us combat the tedium of death row on Polunsky Unit….

This is basically an open forum for Robert’s friends and family to share their personal stories about their relationship/friendship, his case, stories, or whatever it is they want to share. Any comments will be printed and mailed to him and his replies posted.

Please feel free to comment here. Your support means the world to him.

–old enough to do the crime (or not), old enough to do the time–

I lived in places like this off and on for most of my free years just as when this part of my story took place.

My life in the free world came to a screeching halt in August of 1995 when I was 15 years old. I burglarized a home with my cousin and a friend, and we were apprehended later that night. Some of the stolen guns from theburglary were found in my trailer park the next morning by my neighbor, Ray. All but two of the weapons were eventually turned over to the cops by my father to show that he was an honest parent. Eight days later I was released from juvenile hall to my parents’ custody.

 Being locked up for the first time was a rude awakening. I told myself that I’d straighten up and promised the same to my parents and friends. No more getting high, running the streets, and being a thug. I told my best friend that I wanted to be the first Pruett to finish high school.

 But, I wasn’t entirely reformed. About a week after I was released, I found out my neighbor, Ray, had a couple of guns from the burglary. This angered me because Ray and I weren’t getting along, and I somehow still thought that was “my” property.

 At first I got along well with Ray and his wife, Jane. There were older, but I liked hanging out with older people. I smoked pot with them and even took Ray to score crack a few times before he quit smoking it. Things between us deteriorated that summer. Jane’s daughter Nicole, who was my age, came down to Texas to stay the summer. She and I had started messing around like teenagers do and Ray didn’t like that. He said I was a bad influence, and, in retrospect, he was right. But, he allowed things to go on until Jane’s purse was stolen by my friend. Ray blamed it on me and forbid me to ever come over to his place or see Nicole. So, when I heard he had some of the stolen guns, I was furious. I asked him about them one afternoon and he denied having them. A heated argument ensued and ended with my mom yelling at me to get my butt inside.

Later that day, I told my brother–who was closer to Ray’s age at 25–what Ray said. He told me he’d kick his ass when Ray got home. I, then, told my father what happened and he echoed what my brother had said. Fights were a common way for settling disputes in the neighborhoods where we lived, and this trailer park was no different.

My parents fell asleep before Ray ever made it home. My brother talked to me about the situation and said that it would be best to let it blow over. I agreed because a part of me really wanted to stay out of trouble.

As I prepared for bed, I heard Ray’s truck pull into his driveway. Moments later I heard cursing and screaming so I looked out the window and saw him waving his arms at our trailer. I told my brother and he went to wake my dad up as I put on my boots. I walked outside and rounded the end of the trailer. Ray was bent over inside his truck. I panicked thinking he was going for a weapon, and rushed him. I yanked him from his truck and we fought briefly until my brother arrived. He wrestled Ray to the ground and they rolled around for maybe a minute before my father appeared. Ray broke loose before Dad arrived and ran behind his trailer, where my brother and father chased after him. I stayed by his truck talking to people from the trailer park who had come out to see what was happening. Shortly thereafter my father came running from behind the trailer covered in blood.

First, all of this was a huge misunderstanding. At trial, Ray’s wife testified that their dog had gotten out when Ray came in which is why he was screaming when I looked out the window. I thought he was yelling at me. He kept an extra dog leash in his truck, which is why I saw him bent over inside of it.

Second, I never saw Ray get stabbed nor did I want that. It freaked me out to see both my father and my brother covered in blood. All of that being said, I was still certified as an adult at age 16 and sentenced to 99 years in prison under the law of parties.

“They call us problem child
We spend our lives on trial
We walk an endless mile
We are the youth gone wild ”
-Skidrow  

My mom, brother, sister, and I...I couldn't have been more than 1 or 2

My father missed the first 7 years of my life. He was in prison for a robbery spree across America. He left my mother alone to raise my brother, sister, and myself. Being uneducated and without any real job skills, she constantly struggled to make ends meet. She did the best that she could. Nevertheless, my earliest memories are of being hungry and moving around a lot.

Neither of my parents were equipped (mentally or financially) to raise children. And this is illustrated in how my father reacted to being in my life. He tried to be super cool to me, rarely disciplining me when I misbehaved, smoking pot with me, and generally treating more like a friend than a son. He simply thought he could make up for all the lost years by being my friend. While I totally enjoyed having the coolest dad in the neighborhood, what I really needed was a father.

By the time I was 15, I was out of control. As a child, I hated being the poorest kid around, so I started stealing. It started with an ice cream sandwich in kindergarten and evolved to clothes and bikes by my early teens. Before I knew it I was stealing vehicles, committing burglaries, selling drugs, and making more money than my father and brother combined.

Mom and I, in my early teens

Things got considerably better when my father was released from prison in1986. He promised my mother that his days of being an outlaw were over, that he would settle down, be a man, and take care of his family. I was just ecstatic to have a father of my own.

When I was twelve years old, our family took a trip from Houston to Corpus Christi, Texas to visit relatives. Along the way, we stopped in Beeville to see my sister’s children. As we got back on the highway we crossed an overpass with a panoramic view McConnell Unit. My father, a career criminal who had already served 4 terms in prison, explained that McConnell was a new “farm,” nothing like the old joints he did time in throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I vividly recall gazing out the backseat window at the enormous 3000 man compound surrounded by sparkling, razor-wired fences and dirt fields being worked by men in white. I thought about the prison horror stories Dad used to tell to scare me into staying out of trouble and wondered if such things were happening inside McConnell…
Little did I then know that I’d one day be living there, working those fields, and eventually be unwittingly thrust into the center of the investigation of murdered prison guard Daniel Nagle, for which I’m sentenced to die.

 A humane and generous concern for every individual, his health and his fulfillment, will do more to soothe the savage heart than the fear of state-inflicted death, which chiefly serves to remind us how close we remain to the  jungle.

          –Ramsey Clark

If you find yourself in a conversation about the death penalty, you are bound to hear some point about deterrence. To add to that, you’ll hear statements about saving lives, about punishing the offender by killing him in the same exact way he killed his victims, or maybe even public executions. Those statements are usually followed by something to the effect of…”then they’ll think twice before they kill somebody…”

Before you let such utterances spew forth from your person, you might want to be a little more informed first. You can read research studies on the deterrence factor which could favor either argument, but the same can be said of any issue. It all depends on the research method and the interpretations of the data, but numbers don’t lie. All you have to do is simply compare the murder rates of those states with the death penalty to other states or better yet, compare murder rates to the number of executions. Here’s what you’ll find…

The South has been responsible for the good majority of all executions since the death penalty was reinstated. 1153 executions have occurred. Of those, 921 were in the South. Going by region, the South also had the highest murder rate at 7.0 per 100,000 people in 2007. The region with the fewest executions since reinstatement? Yeah, they also had the lowest murder rates.

Getting more specific especially since much of this site is trying to raise awareness about freeing an innocent man on death row, let’s discuss Texas. Texas is responsible for almost half of the executions which have occurred in the South…literally almost half the executions which occurred in the entire nation since 1976. This year alone, 10 people have been killed by the state. That’s more than many other states have executed in 30 years…and Texas has done it in less than 3 months. But, here’s the kicker, Texas still has a high murder rate. The national rate for 2007 was 5.6. Texas ranked in at 5.9. So, here it is in black and white, folks… Our nation’s killing machine still has a murder rate above the nation’s average. And you can’t say it’s because death still really isn’t a threat there. People in Texas don’t sit on death row for decades. The average Texas death row inmate lives 6 1/2 years after being sentenced.

What’s even more interesting is that New York state, which doesn’t have the death penalty, doesn’t see the same types of crime rates as states which do, even states which utilize it often. When looking at homicide rates, New York rates pretty low on the list even with the highly populated NYC. And, the same can be said of other non death penalty states. States without the death penalty are few but do include: Alaska, Hawaii, Minnesota, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Iowa,  New Jersey, New Mexico, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Also, D.C. Almost all of these states have a murder rate well below the national average while at least half of those states with the death penalty rank in above the national average. In fact, a NY times article found that in the last 20 years, death penalty states have had a murder rate 48-101% higher than states without it.

It’s quite easy to see the problem is most likely that people don’t want to see what’s right in front of them. Executions don’t deter murder. At all. Killing doesn’t stop killing. And, when it all boils down to it, many of the people that advocate capital punishment aren’t really concerned with deterrence. It just sounds more reasonable. The underlying motivator here is revenge. George Bush told us that it should never be about revenge; it’s about saving the lives of others. Well, W., that’s what life without the possibility of parole is for, I do believe. Have a good, deeply involved discussion with a group of people about capital punishment and listen to the statements about mirroring the crime as punishment, about going back to public executions, about torturing murderers…quartering them like in ‘the good ole days’….I’ve heard all of those and more. Those statements reek of revenge and blood thirst and nothing more….

behind the glass

Robert and I write each other once or twice a week. I’ve already asked him to start working on things from his perspective, so installments will arrive and be posted as they come.