Thomas Murton; Reform-Minded Prisons Chief

Thomas Murton, 62, the controversial reform-minded Arkansas prisons chief who was the inspiration for the Robert Redford movie “Brubaker.” Murton, who advocated treating prisoners with respect and opposed the death penalty, rose to prominence as head of Cummins State Prison in Arkansas in the 1960s. Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller appointed him head of the state prison system in 1967. Redford’s 1980 role in “Brubaker”--as a reform-minded prisons chief who gets little support from his state’s political establishment--was loosely based on Murton’s career. A year after Murton’s appointment, a national scandal erupted when authorities dug up three bodies at Cummins that a prisoner said had been beaten and shot by trusties and guards. Murton said he believed that as many as 200 inmates were buried on the grounds but Rockefeller accused him of turning the investigation into a sideshow, and a grand jury accused him of seeking publicity. Murton left Arkansas shortly thereafter, forming what proved an unsuccessful criminal justice foundation. He wrote two books, “Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal” and “The Dilemma of Prison Reform.” In Oklahoma City on Oct. 10 of cancer.