25 Years of Life on Death Row (1996-2021)

When I first came to Death Row in May of 1996, we were housed at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, Texas. (The women on Death Row are housed at a Unit in Gatesville.) When I arrived at the Ellis Unit – it was nothing like what I expected. I was told that because I was an ex-cop I had to do at least six months time in “single-man recreation,” as opposed to being in group recreation. Group recreation?! Yup! I’d thought we’d all always be separated somehow. But when they brought me to my wing, I looked in and saw TVs along the wall and guys playing basketball and handball outside in the rec yard, all getting along just fine. All races. As I walked to my cell near the end of the run, I heard a few guys taunting me with names like “pig,” wanting me to get outside with them. Since my case had been highly publicized by the media, I expected that. After I got inside my cramped cell, my neighbor, Earnest Willis, and a few other guys asked if I needed anything. My first thought was that they were trying to “punk me out” somehow, so I declined and said I was fine. Yet within a few days I was sent things like a new t-shirt from Genaro Camacho and toothpaste from Hank Skinner. Although I was still on the receiving end of taunts, I considered it nothing more than bothersome and did not feel threatened.

Two days after my arrival, as I was coming back from a routine medical check-up, I asked the captain if I could be moved from single-man rec into the group rec with the rest of the guys if I signed some sort of release form. He told me there was such a form and took me to speak with the warden and classification committee for me to sign it. I then showed up in the next rec day’s group. Long story short, I got along just fine with everyone, as I’d anticipated. I played basketball, handball and worked out with them. It was in that rec group that I met Charles Hood who became my best fellow prisoner friend. (He has since accepted a deal for a life sentence and is at a different Unit in general population). After six months I became eligible for the work program. Work program?! Yup! Hood and I became cellmates. Cellmates?! Yup! People on the work program had to start off living with another Death Row inmate in a two-person cell. I worked in a garment factory there at the Unit – making pants for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) guards. We had large, pointed scissors, screwdrivers, needles, electric cloth cutters, and other “weapons” at our disposal, yet no incidents of violence ever occurred. I met some very decent people who had made some horrible decisions in their lives that ended the lives of their victims, yet now they were totally changed men. Hood is one such person. He was a terrific neighbor and knowing him as the person he is now would make it hard to guess his past. I also met one of the best examples of a Christian ever, yet he was sadly executed. His name was Jose Gutierrez and I’ll never forget him. There’s also Eric Cathey, whom I still consider a good prisoner friend after over twenty-two years.

Unfortunately, we all got transferred to this Polunsky Unit (aka – “living hell”) in 2000 after seven guys tried to escape from Ellis. While the women still have group rec, a work program, TV, shaving razors, nail clippers, pencil sharpeners, multi-plug extension cords, and church services to my knowledge, us men had all that taken away from us. Why?! I didn’t do anything to warrant such punishment or discrimination. But that’s TDCJ and Polunsky Unit officials for you. And apparently, some Texas politicians know about all these unjust actions against us, and maybe even initiated some, especially after one guy here got hold of a cell phone and called Senator John Whitmire and harassed or threatened him. Okay, so punish that guy. But all of us Death Row men get locked down and shaken down four times per year as a result, whereas all of general population. and Death Row women are still only once or twice a year. How would you like for your neighbor to commit a crime and you get punished for it as well? The penal, judicial and law enforcement systems should lead by example of doings things properly and justly. But since their examples are injustice, corruption, and not following their own laws and policies, many prisoners learn that example and teach it to their family and friends who then all harbor contempt for our systems. It transitions into a cycle of corruption which creates even more victims out there!

There’s a lot of evil in here, and I don’t mean the inmates. Every day we’re mistreated somehow. If we’re not being jacked out of rec and/or shower time, we’re jacked out of a meal (or a proper meal), commissary, sleep, medical treatment (or proper treatment), or our property is stolen or damaged. If you view the menus posted on the TDCJ site showing what we’re supposed to be fed, it will look like that of a fine restaurant. Well I’m on the “diet for health” menu and can assure you that Polunsky Unit has not adhered to that menu in many, many years. Not for us Death Row men anyway. When I file grievances about any mistreatment or non-compliance to their own rules, 80% “disappear,” and the other 20% are denied without any valid reason or rationale. The investigators are all TDCJ employees who are trained to protect TDCJ. We need to have free-world oversight to remedy our grievances, but Texas Republican politicians always shoot down such bills proposed by Democrats because they want to protect TDCJ officials and not appear soft on prisoners to their voters. Free-world oversight could help end the cycle of corruption. So please only vote for politicians who support such oversight and oust those who don’t. It’s only right that TDCJ employees follow their own rules and set proper examples for the inmates.

Fortunately, most of the guards are pretty decent with us, or at least don’t go out of their way to mess us over badly. But too many of the officials tend to dislike us and either want to impose harsh treatments upon us or turn a blind eye to it all when it does occur. On October 19, 2018, I was assaulted by a sergeant who allegedly was told by a captain to make sure to “gas” me. Well, he sure did. He sprayed harsh chemicals into my mouth and down my throat as I politely tried to answer him while I waited for him to open my panhole. Within a few hours, I felt my vocals chords tear and was having severe acid reflux. My vocal cords are permanently damaged and I lost my singing voice. Among other effects, I constantly have to clear my throat, can’t swallow pills properly and sometimes even vomit from trying, and am in constant pain. On December 18, 2020, I was finally sent to John Sealy Hospital to be seen by an Ear/Nose/Throat doctor to determine if the two large tumor-like growths wrapping into my throat since the assault were cancerous. He said they weren’t, but he was not recommending surgeries since neither is life-threatening (and I shouldn’t be around too much longer anyway.) So, I just have to live with it all, just like with all the other non life-threatening surgeries I need on my lower back and shoulder,as a result of my having been assaulted also during my arrest.

Oddly, the majority of guards who do mistreat me and others are women! Polunsky officials seem to love placing women over us Death Row men who are man-haters and have some psychological need to exercise abusive authority over men. If they were to work in general population and act that way, they’d likely get assaulted. So us Death Row men get them all. Women also oversee all our grievances, incoming and outgoing mail, Property Room, necessities, and monitoring of video surveillance in the control picket for all of 12 building. That’s something else imposed upon us Death Row men: video cameras that watch us everywhere we go when we’re out of our cells. Plus, all 14 Death Watch cells have cameras inside that are monitored very mostly by women. And we get stripped naked every time we’re coming back to our cells from the rec areas and visit. In other words, women are watching us get naked all day long. Are male guards allowed to strip out and watch female inmates get naked all the time? Nope. Just more daily mistreatment and discrimination against us men.

It’s also mistreatment that we get cuffed behind our backs any time we are escorted anywhere to or from our cells. There is no need whatsoever for us to be cuffed and escorted on the Pods. The Pods were designed for one officer to sit in the picket and use the electronic control panel to open all doors and gates so inmates can walk on their own to rec, shower, etc, one inmate at a time for safety reasons. To not do it that intended way is a total waste of manpower, time, taxpayer dollars, and causes us the abuse of being stripped and cuffed, as well as being stuck in a rec cage for over six hours (not fun at all if you have to go to the bathroom or are outside in the cold and/or rain), or inside the small shower booths for up to 2 hours. Furthermore, everyone around the world is practicing social distancing because of this COVID pandemic, but not for us Death Row men. Not only do the officers hold onto our arms with their germy hands, but they’re wiping their germy hands all over our clothes and towels when they strip us out and check our clothes. You’d think that at least during this pandemic – Polunsky officials would forgo such stripping searches and escorts. But nope.

By the way, the outside rec areas are actually only fully caged atriums that are open to the outside only at the tops of the cage. Photos and more information about the cells and Unit overall, might be posted on this Minutes Before Six site and/or the TDCJ site for you to view. Because everything is made with concrete and steel, sound bounces off the walls, picket, etc, and it’s loud in here.

As for my routine days, depending on the section, breakfast is served about 3:45am. I save the food and try to get back to sleep again until about 5:30am when officers come around asking if we’re going to rec or shower. I rarely rec early, so I either refuse or may say yes to a rec time that’s after lunch and go back to sleep until about 10am if I’m lucky. But there are always interruptions for something. Lunch is served between 10am and noon, but I save it until my 1:30pm snack and eat my breakfast when I get up. Then I either read, start writing letters, or get ready for rec if I said yes. I do a workout either in my cell or at rec, then eat the lunch I saved. I then get to work on legal material or write letters or read. I do another workout in the late afternoon and eat another snack about 4 pm. My workouts total only about thirty minutes per day and six days per week. I take the Sabbath (Saturdays) off. We don’t have any weights here – so I improvise using my sheet and body resistance, plus do pushups and pull-ups. Because I’ve never had attorneys who’d file or did what I wanted and needed, can’t afford to hire my own attorneys, and have been unable to obtain a pro bona firm, I’ve done an extensive amount of legal filings myself, pro se. Some of the more recent and important ones are posted on: https://bobbyfratta.wixsite.com/homepage if you’d care to read any.

Dinner is served between 4pm and 6pm and I eat about 6:30pm and get back to letters or something to keep me busy. I eat my last snack about 8:30pm. I eat five to six times per day (so long as I have commissary food) because I’m hypoglycemic. I have no control over what time they take me to the shower booth. It can vary between 5:30am and midnight. Because I try to be in bed by 10pm, I usually only shower three to four times per week. As a result, I’ve gotten quite good at washing off in my cell. Mail doesn’t get delivered until late, usually about 10:30pm but sometimes as late as 1:30am the next day. Between late showers, mail, breakfast and ensuing tray pick up, maybe you can understand why I try to be in bed by 10pm and not get up until 10am – just to try to get a total of eight hours sleep. In addition to all the TDCJ caused interruptions, some sleep interruptions come from fellow inmates. I’m a firm believer that we should all stop our “B/Sing” by 10pm. Most guys agree with that, but you always have some with the mentality of: “This is prison and I’ll do what I want when I want” and will B/S at all hours of the night and early mornings when there are no recs. It does no good to try to explain to such guys that such an attitude is what landed them in prison and is why they don’t belong back out there in the world believing they can do what they want when they want. Since coming to Polunsky, racism and intolerance have increased tremendously, as have what we call “cell warriors.” Those are the guys who are real brave behind a steel door because we don’t have group rec. I don’t believe there’s a week that goes by where guys don’t get into loud arguments with the stereotypical prison name-callings of “bitch, ho, punk, dxxk-sxxxer, and snitch.” All the arguments sound the same. You learn to ignore them, unless you’re bored and want some entertainment.

Staff works two shifts and each complains they have too much workload and do more work than the other shift. Because of how the officials do things I already pointed out, officers do have too much workload. But to make matters worse, no one teaches officers “time management” for the most efficiency, and officials keep adding totally unnecessary functions to the workload (like cell “integrity” checks, “security” checks every thirty minutes, stripping us coming out of the small shower booths, etc). Such nonsense is why there’s such a high rate of officers quitting all the time, and us inmates suffer through it all. That’s another reason I stay in my cell a lot. I don’t want to deal with us the B/S.

Even though they only give us one shaving razor per week, I still cut my own hair. I wait until the day before the exchange because after I cut my hair – the razor isn’t sharp enough to shave peach hairs, let alone facial hair.

In addition to writing letters, I’ve also written articles and essays (like this one), and now have a book published in paperback and digital that’s available on Amazon.com and is titled: The Solution to End Racial, Religious and Political Tensions. It’s a must-read with all that’s going on out there now!

Lastly, no essay about my life on Death Row would be complete without explaining the vital role you people out there play. With both parents dead and all my children, only sibling and friends disowning me, I’d have had no love or “beauty” in my life at all had new people out there never written me. Many men here are in the same situation. I reflect back on all the people over this quarter century who were willing to come into my life at a time when most all of society has been hating me and wanting me to die. Although almost all people who write – come and go rather quickly, I’m still so thankful for the joy each gave me just to receive their introductory letter and experience the excitement over the possibility of a new friendship. Out there, people are able to seek out and find others for friendship. But in here we have no control over who may write us and what their intentions or hopes may be in doing so. I want to express my sincere appreciation to those of you (past, present and future?) willing to come into my life. You’ve taught me a lot about love, and that true beauty really does come from within. I send a heartfelt THANK YOU for writing. My life would be empty and meaningless without you. You are all wonderful and beautiful and an integral part of surviving life on Death Row.