Attorneys for a terminally ill death row inmate have slammed Idaho officials for securing a death warrant, saying they are rushing to execute him despite unresolved legal challenges.
Gerald Ross Pizzuto Jr., who has late-stage bladder cancer and has been under hospice care since 2019, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on December 15.
Pizzuto was convicted in 1986 of killing Berta Herndon, 58, and her 37-year-old nephew, Del Herndon, during an armed robbery north of McCall.
Prosecutors said he approached their cabin armed with a .22 caliber rifle in July 1985, tied their wrists behind their backs and bound their legs to steal their money before he bludgeoned them both. Another man, James Rice, then shot Del Herndon in the head.
The death warrant was served on Pizzuto, 66, at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna on Wednesday, according to the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC). The department said officials don't have the chemicals needed to carry out the execution, but are working to source them.
The department's director, Josh Tewalt, has suspended the implementation of the execution until he "anticipates a change in the material ability to carry out an execution," it added.
The IDOC also said it will implement procedures for Pizzuto consistent with Idaho law.
Pizzuto's attorney says the state's pursuit of a death warrant was "reckless and unnecessary" and that setting an execution between Thanksgiving and Christmas showed a "stunning lack of regard" for the execution team and prison staff.
The Federal Defenders Services of Idaho, which is representing Pizzuto, said it is seeking a stay of execution, citing multiple legal challenges pending in state and federal courts.
They include a challenge against Republican Gov. Brad Little's rejection of the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole's recommendation that Pizzuto's death sentence be commuted and he be allowed to die a natural death behind bars.
Pizzuto's attorneys are also challenging the use of pentobarbital "on the grounds that it creates a risk of a torture to a man riddled with cancer, diabetes and heart disease."
Pizzuto's history of prescription medication will make the pentobarbital less effective, they said, and his heart condition raises the risk of a painful heart attack before he is sedated.
"The state is trying to execute Mr. Pizzuto as quickly as possible to prevent the courts from giving thorough and careful consideration to whether his execution would be lawful," Deborah Czuba, supervising attorney for the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defender Services of Idaho, said in a statement to Newsweek.
"The Governor can still accept the recommendation of his Commission and spare Mr. Pizzuto, the public and especially the prison staff a needless execution."
Pizzuto has avoided three prior execution dates in his decades on death row, according to the Idaho Statesman.
The state most recently sought to execute him in June last year, but he was granted a stay of execution while the state's Commission of Pardons and Parole agreed to consider the case.
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