LARRY O’DELL
Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A judge says he will rule in about three weeks on a Virginia death row inmate’s claim he shouldn’t be executed because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in another case.
U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson heard arguments in Alfredo Prieto’s case Wednesday.
Prieto was awaiting execution in California for raping and murdering a teenager when a DNA sample connected him to the 1988 slayings of two George Washington University students in Reston. He was also sentenced to death for those.
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that a rigid cutoff on IQ test scores cannot be used to determine whether someone is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution. Prieto claims that means he cannot be executed. Attorneys for the state say the ruling shouldn’t be applied retroactively.
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