Virginia inmate is executed after judge rejects claim execution drug could be ineffective
A Virginia inmate was executed on Thursday after a judge rejected his claims about the efficacy of one of his execution drugs.
Alfredo Prieto, who was convicted of three murders and linked to six others, had an “utterly painless death,” the Washington Post reports. In his last statement, Prieto thanked his supporters and said, “Get it over with,” according to the Post and the Associated Press.
Prieto’s lawyers had raised questions about one of his execution drugs, pentobarbital, which was supplied by Texas prison officials after Virginia’s supply of midazolam had passed its expiration date. A federal judge in Alexandria temporarily stayed the execution to consider the claim, but a different federal judge in Richmond who held a hearing on Thursday said no problem had been proven.
The judge, Henry Hudson, said delaying the execution would harm those affected by Prieto’s crimes, a harm “magnified here by the appalling number of people that Prieto has killed, raped, or otherwise injured.” A federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court both declined to issue stays.
Prieto’s lawyers had also argued he should not be executed because he was intellectually disabled. One of the lawyers, Robert Lee, said in a statement that Virginia executed Prieto “without knowing whether he has intellectual disability or not, using drugs that are far beyond their approved date of use.”
“The drugs used are about six months beyond the date of use approved by industry standards,” Lee said. “There is a real but unnecessary and easily avoided risk of extreme suffering, because of concerns about the expired drug’s efficacy. However, because Virginia uses a paralytic in its lethal injection protocol, we will never know whether Mr. Prieto’s execution is legal and humane.”
