The commonwealth of Virginia executed Alfredo Prieto at 9:17 p.m. on Thursday night, and, according to BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner, Prieto still had an appeal pending before the Supreme Court at the time of his death.
Virginia did not violate the law by executing Prieto, as Geidner notes, because no stay of execution was in force when the death warrant became active at 9 p.m. But states typically wait for the final ruling from the Supreme Court before beginning the execution process.
The piece then goes on with the by-now-standard advocacy about how the death penalty is "under scrutiny from both the public and the courts," as if "under scrutiny" means we should hesitate forever before imposing a legal sentence.
It's possible the author thinks his readership is so stupid it doesn't realize that a defendant's lawyer can always and at any time run to court with an appeal -- thus meaning, according to the logic he implies, that a death sentence could never be carried out. It's also possible he doesn't know that counsel could have previously asked the court for a stay pending an order specifically authorizing the execution.
Possible, but not likely. What the author actually wants is to ensure that the death penalty, no matter how thoroughly reviewed in a given case, and how popular with the public, is, strictly for ideological reasons, obstructed out to infinity.
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