Nagle's Killer Nailed

Corpus Christi, Texas

In mid-December 1999, a nothing-to-lose inmate at Texas' Beeville prison stabbed to death Corrections Officer Daniel Nagle, president of Local 3890 (Council 7). The apparent cause: a squabble over regulations covering inmates' use of the recreation yard. The murder widowed Nagle's wife, orphaned their three young children and became a rallying cry for AFSCME Corrections United on the issue of prison safety.

This past May, almost two and a half years later, a Harris County jury convicted Robert Lynn Pruett of "capital murder" for the crime and sent him to the Lone Star State's death row.

Pruett, 22, was already serving a long term — along with his father — for the 1995 slaying of a neighbor. His bleak future apparently conditioned his willingness to kill a second time: "I don't care what y'all do," he told the jury. "I'm gonna die in prison anyway."

Pruett's lawyers tried to make his rough upbringing a mitigating factor. They also raised the issue of security at Beeville, claiming that cameras and more COs could have prevented the murder. Neither tactic proved persuasive to the jury. Said the senior warden of the prison complex, "I think they were grasping for straws."

Because the case involves the most serious form of murder under Texas law, the conviction has automatically been appealed.