Ex-cop on death row appears to invite 'female friends' to execution as prosecutors seek to set date
A former Missouri City police officer on death row — convicted in his estranged wife’s death — is appearing to ask for “female friends” to witness his execution, which could happen as early as January, prosecutors revealed Thursday in court.
Robert Fratta, 65, purportedly published the plea for companionship to the Write a Prisoner website in July in the weeks after the Harris County District Attorney’s Office signaled to the judge in the 230th District Court that an execution order was pending his signature. Fratta’s defense team has sought to postpone the signing of the order, which would set the execution date for Jan. 10, amid the possibility of another appeal. He has spent 26 years on death row.
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Joshua Reiss, chief of the office’s Post-Conviction Writs Division, showed a screenshot of the defendant’s pen pal profile to the judge and noted that the profile suggests that Fratta believes the execution to be inevitable.
A portion of the profile, which features a photo of Fratta from March, reads: “All of my official appeals are over and I don’t have any female friends to be with me when I’m executed.”
“He views all his appeals as being exhausted,” Reiss said in court.
Defense attorney James Rytting, who has represented Fratta for nearly two decades, voiced his objection to the profile as an exhibit.
“We don’t know who wrote it — it’s complete hearsay,” Rytting said, suggesting that someone other than Fratta could have written the profile. He questioned his client’s mental health.
He urged Judge Chris Morton to not sign the execution order until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on Fratta’s attempt to reopen federal proceedings in his case.
“Within 60 days, we will know what the Supreme Court is going to do,” Rytting said, adding that his legal team is also in the middle of reviewing thousands of documents from the district attorney’s office pertaining to Fratta.
Declining to sign the document, Rytting argued, is easier than the alternative: Retracting the execution date.
Judge Morton decided not to sign the order at that moment, but he gave Rytting until Oct. 11 to come forward with an argument that could merit a delay. If not, the judge said he will sign the order — allowing the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to move forward with the scheduled execution date.
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In the 351st District Court, Judge Natalia Cornelio has postponed signing an execution date for a death row inmate over concerns of judicial discretion and an intellectual disability. She questioned whether the signing of the death warrant is a ministerial duty — meaning that a judge has little to no discretion over a matter. The Court of Criminal Appeals is reviewing the quandary.
In recent court documents, Rytting cited the looming opinion over judicial discretion as another reason to hold off on signing of the order. Morton did not appear to agree with that argument.
“It is a ministerial duty, in my mind,” Morton said, going on to say he disagrees with his fellow jurist. “Unless there are intervening facts at that time, I will be signing it.”
Cornelio has said she will sign the order if the prosecutors can secure a date in late February or March for Arthur Brown to be executed. The defendant was convicted of killing four people in 1992.
Fratta, sentenced in 1996, declined again to be present in the courtroom or by remote video as both parties addressed the judge. He is being held at the Polunsky Unit.
Fratta was convicted of a murder-to-hire plot that led to the death of his wife, Farah Fratta, amid their divorce and a custody battle. Two men involved in the plot, including middle man Joseph Prystash and Howard Guidry — the trigger man — were also convicted and sentenced to death. Fratta would be the first of the three to face execution.
Fratta has professed his innocence in his estranged wife's death and tried, but failed, to appeal his case. He has alleged that her father framed him.
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