RICHMOND, Va. -- James Dyral Briley followed his older brother to Virginia's electric chair Thursday night and was executed for killing a young mother and son during a 1979 Briley gang murder spree that claimed 12 lives.
Briley, 28, was put to death with two 55-second jolts of 2,300 volts of electricity. He was pronounced dead at 11:07 p.m. EST.
There were no news media witnesses.
Prison officials said Briley made no final statement, but looked at the nine official witnesses in the cramped death chamber, smiled and said: 'Are you happy?'
Convicts at Virginia's State Penitentiary staged a brief but bloody riot Thursday morning in a futile attempt to take guards hostage and halt the execution, but were silent when Briley was put to death.
After being led inside the death chamber by the assistant warden, officials said Briley thanked the Rev. Marjorie Bailey, the Baptist minister who married him to a freelance writer in a jailhouse ceremony March 28.
Outside the aging prison in downtown Richmond, about 500 death penalty advocates cheered, whistled and applauded as Briley became the 42nd convict in the United States executed since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment. Police made about 10 arrests, mostly for drunk and disorderly conduct.
Defense attorneys ended efforts to save Briley from the electric chair Thursday evening after being rejected by a federal judge. Gov. Charles Robb also refused to intervene in Virginia's third execution since 1976.
Briley was shaved, showered and prepared for the execution at 8 p.m., and officials said he spent his remaining hours on the phone to his family and listening to recorded music, including tunes by soul singer Al Green.
The middle brother of three of the most feared killers in Virginia insisted in his last public statement that he was innocent and was framed by another member of the gang that staged a bloody riegn of terror in the Richmond area in 1979.
Guards quelled the Thursday morning disturbance in 15 minutes, but nine guards and one inmate were injured in the melee. The riot did not interrupt preparations for the execution of Briley for killing Judy Barton and her 5-year-old son.
Briley, who became a convict hero when he and his older brother led the nation's biggest death row breakout last year, became the 42nd convict executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
Virginia's Supreme Court also refused Thursday to halt Briley's execution in the same electric chair where his older brother, Linwood, was put to death last Oct. 12 for the fatal back-shooting of a Richmond disc jockey.
A third Briley brother, Anthony, is serving a life sentence for another murder.
James and Linwood Briley made worldwide headlines last May 31 by staging an audacious bomb hoax that tricked Mecklenburg Correctional Center guards into opening the gates, allowing the brothers and four other condemned killers to make the biggest death row escape in the nation's history. The brothers were caught in Philadelphia 19 days later.
Defense attorney Gerald Zerkin, saying he had an affidavit from a female convict that would prove Briley was framed, made a last-minute appeal to U.S. District Judge Dortch Warriner to halt the execution.
The inmate, Priscilla Scarborough, was brought before the judge and repeated her claim that Duncan Meekins, a member of the Briley gang, told her he committed the execution-style murders of Barton and her son.
Meekins turned state's evidence in exchange for a life sentence.
But Warringer, saying 'She simply is not credible,' refused to halt the execution and Zerkin said it would be 'hopeless' to appeal the ruling.
'I have no apologies for the reprsentation we followed,' Zerkin said. 'I think it is a tragedy that he will be executed.'
Briley had a final two-hour visit with his family Thursday afternoon, then ordered a last meal of fried shrimp, a soft drink and ice cream.
Briley's wife, Evangeline Grant Redding, thanked inmates at the prison in downtown Richmond for their riotous support of the man she married behind bars last month.
'We want to say thank you (to the inmates),' she said. 'We're sorry people were hurt in the process, but this is what happens when the state engages in violence. Violence breeds violence.'
Corrections spokesman Wayne Farrar said the inmates planned the uprising to 'involve the taking of hostages with the purpose of disrupting the execution.'
At least four inmates armed with makeshift clubs, an icepick and a nail jumped a guard about 7:45 a.m in 'B' Building, which houses medium and maximum-security prisoners. As the disturbance escalated, helmeted guards swarmed into the cellblock carrying night sticks and put down the uprising.
Authorities were unsure how many of the 900 inmates in the prison joined in the violence but 17 were placed in isolation.
