Prieto’s main attorney, Robert Lee, complained that he had filed an 11th hour appeal on behalf of his client with the US Supreme Court, but that the execution was carried out before the USA highest court could render a decision.
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Crimes that Prieto has been convicted or linked to by evidence include the 1988 shootings of Rachael Raver and Warren Fulton III on the outskirts of the United States capital, the Washington Post reported.
Prieto was on California’s death row by that time, convicted of raping and killing a 15-year-old girl.
Prieto’s last words were, “I would like to say thanks to all my lawyers, all my supporters, and all my family members”.
A federal judge in Alexandria approved an order Wednesday temporarily blocking Prieto’s execution after his attorneys raised concerns about one of the lethal injection drugs that the state intends to use.
Terry McAuliffe says the state may have difficulty in the future obtaining lethal injection drugs if the manufacturers can’t be shielded from the public.
Prieto’s attorneys also want tests confirming the drug’s sterility and potency and documents showing that the drugs were properly handled, transported and stored.
Prieto looked calm as he entered the execution chamber at 8:53 p.m. The warden stepped behind the curtain at 9:09 p.m. and shortly afterward officials began administering the drugs.
He was sentenced to death in 2010 for murdering a young couple in Virginia more than two decades earlier.
The latest on the scheduled execution of a convicted serial killer in Virginia.
In 2007, Prieto’s defense lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court, claiming that the convict’s intelligence quotient was below the state standard for mental retardation, exempting him from capital punishment.
Alfredo Prieto, a serial attacker and executioner, was indicted assault and murder in both Southern California and northern Virginia. She said the company sent several letters to Virginia officials when Mylan learned about the drug’s possible use and then demanded that the state return the product when it received no response.
Virginia’s lethal injection protocol calls for the use of pentobarbital, a sedative, at the beginning of the execution.
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“The lawsuit argues that use of the purported pentobarbital imposes an exceptional and entirely unnecessary risk of a cruel and painful execution”, the lawyers said.
