Virginia Executes Inmate with Appeal Still Pending Before Supreme Court

On October 1, Virginia exe­cut­ed Alfredo Prieto (pic­tured) before the U.S. Supreme Court had decid­ed whether to grant a stay on his chal­lenge to Virginia’s use of an exe­cu­tion drug obtained from Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Robert Lee, Prieto’s attor­ney, said, ​“The Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States were con­sid­er­ing Mr. Prieto’s request for a stay of exe­cu­tion but the Virginia Department of Corrections went ahead with the exe­cu­tion with­out wait­ing for a deci­sion from the Justices.” Earlier in the day, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson held a hear­ing on a chal­lenge to Virginia’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure. Virginia used com­pound­ed pen­to­bar­bi­tal obtained from Texas, with­out any inquiry into the man­u­fac­ture, puri­ty, or stor­age of the drug. Prieto’s lawyers raised ques­tions about the safe­ty and effi­ca­cy of the drug. Hudson denied the appeal and lift­ed a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion that had put the exe­cu­tion on hold. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4^th Circuit denied Prieto’s appeal of this issue. Prieto’s lawyers then filed a peti­tion for review with the U.S. Supreme Court, but Virginia car­ried out the exe­cu­tion before the Court could issue a deci­sion. The last time a state exe­cut­ed an inmate with appeals still pend­ing was January 29, 2014, when Missouri exe­cut­ed Herbert Smulls.

On September 29, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also had sought to enjoin the exe­cu­tion, find­ing sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence that Prieto was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and had been denied a mean­ing­ful judi­cial deter­mi­na­tion of his eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penal­ty. The human rights tri­bunal issued ​“pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures” against the exe­cu­tion — the inter­na­tion­al law equiv­a­lent of a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion — and direct­ed the United States to report with­in 5 days of what steps it tak­en to halt Prieto’s execution.

(C. Geidner, ​“Virginia Executes Serial Killer Before Supreme Court Rules On Final Request,” BuzzFeed, October 1, 2015; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Resolution 32/​2015, Precautionary Measure 489 – 15, September 29, 2015.) See U.S. Supreme Court, Lethal Injection, and International.