Texas executes Robert Fratta after high courts reject challenges to expired lethal injection drugs

The Texas death chamber in Huntsville. (Credit: Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

Texas executed Robert Fratta on Tuesday night for the 1994 death of his estranged wife, Farah. The prisoner’s death was preceded by a dramatic day of back-and-forth court decisions on whether the state could continue using lethal drugs long past their original expiration dates.

For years, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has extended the use-by dates of its lethal doses of pentobarbital, the only drug used in Texas executions, after retesting their potency levels. Defense attorneys have slammed the practice, claiming the testing is done incorrectly and that old drugs have caused painful deaths that violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.