Robert Fratta Called Death Sentence 'Enlightening' Days Before Execution

Robert Alan Fratta described the death sentence as "enlightening" just days before he was executed for his role in the murder of his estranged wife nearly 30 years ago.

Texas authorities on Tuesday night executed former police officer Fratta, 65, by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was convicted of arranging the murder of his wife, Farah, who was fatally shot in their home in the Houston suburb of Atascocita. At the time, he was taking his three children to church classes.

Fratta long maintained his innocence, and his attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, accusing prosecutors of withholding evidence that could have changed the outcome of his case.

On Sunday, just two days before his execution, Fratta described his sentence as "enlightening" during an interview with the organization Death Penalty Action.

"It's been kind of an enlightening experience as far as, I never gave any thought to the death penalty even though I was a police officer. Now that I'm going through it, I can understand how so ridiculously tormenting it is for the inmates to be put through this," he said.

Although he once supported the death penalty, his experience on death row changed his perspective, Fratta explained, adding that he believes there were systemic issues that prevented his argument to halt the execution from being heard, including no place for his "meritorious" claims to be heard.

"To have you knowing the day and time and everything that you're going to die, and it's just prolonged, and everything that they put you through beforehand—this is torture," he said.

Fratta continued: "I can't believe that the government, of 'We the People,' allow this to happen."

His attorneys argued that prosecutors withheld evidence that a key witness was hypnotized by investigators, leading to a change in her testimony that she saw three men at the scene of the shooting. When she was not hypnotized, this witness only recounted seeing two men. Hypnosis, which is generally not seen as credible science, is no longer used in Texas.

"This would have undermined the State's case, which depended on just two men committing the act and depended on linking Fratta to both," his attorneys wrote in a petition.

Fratta and his attorneys also raised concerns about the expiration date of the drugs used in the execution, warning that old drugs could lead to a botched execution.

He was the second person in the United States to be executed this year. The first was 49-year-old Amber McLaughlin, who was sentenced to death for the 2003 murder of her girlfriend.