Adolfo E. Nieto Piñeiro-Osorio

Adolfo E. Nieto Piñeiro-Osorio (1899-1980)

Born in Havana on December 15, 1899, learning his first letters and his high-school education at Guanabacoa’s Brothers of Pious Schools, continuing his higher education at the Law School of Havana University where he graduated as an attorney.

Just out of law school he started practicing law in Güines in the Public Notary of his father, Dr. Adolfo Nieto Alberti. In the Villa he met and married a beautiful Güinera, Eloísa Urruela Fraga, his lifetime spouse, creating a lovely family blessed by God with two children, Eloísa (also an attorney) and Adolfo Nieto Urruela.

Dr. Nieto liked politics and he belonged for many years to the Liberal Party, being a candidate aiming to be admitted into the Cuban Congress when in 1924, General Gerardo Machado of the Liberal Party, took office as President of the Republic, defeating General Mario García Menocal of the Conservative Party, but commitments made by him in those years during General Machado’s presidency, did not take him through that route but towards the route of the Judicial Power.

He started his judicial career as a Judge in Güines First Instance and Criminal Instruction Court. As time went by and due to his personal and professional links with Güines, he was honored by the Town Council and named Adopted Son of the Villa of Güines. After several years as a Judge, his career in the Cuban Judicial Power kept its upward path, passing rigorous entrance examinations, which made him a Magistrate in the Court of Appeals. He was President of the First Criminal Court in Havana's Court of Appeals, ending at Oriente's Court of Appeals where he was transferred in 1933 and where he stayed for 20 years.

Being a Magistrate at Oriente's Court of Appeals located in the Province’s capital Santiago de Cuba, the ominous attack to Moncada Military Garrison occurred on July 26, 1953 and when the assailants were arrested, whose leader was Fidel Castro, the corresponding criminal process was started. The trial was assigned to the Court presided by Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleó but this Magistrate became "sick" and at the end, accepting the request of Dr. Julio César Guerra, then President of the Court, Dr. Nieto agreed to form a tribunal together with Magistrates Dr. Mejía and Dr. Díaz Olivera.

The corresponding trial made history in Cuba. There, the main defendant enjoyed all rights that he, afterwards, have denied to the people of Cuba. They were found guilty and Fidel Castro and his accomplices were sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment at Isle of Pines National Penitentiary, then Cuba’s President Fulgencio Batista commuted such sentence a year later.

When a vacancy occurred in Cuba's highest tribunal, the Supreme Court, Dr. Nieto took the entrance examination, succeeding in being included in the required group of three, and then chosen by his well-deserved merits, his judicial talent, his honesty and his experience, serving as Magistrate in Cuba's Supreme Court. Him and Dr. Cabezas were the only Magistrates in Cuba's Supreme Court that, when Fidel Castro took power on January 1, 1959, demanded to faithfully follow the 1940 Constitution in connection with the presidential succession. The President and Vice-President having left the country, the oldest Magistrate of the Supreme Court Dr. Carlos Piedra, was in line to provisionally occupy the Presidency until elections were held. Of course, the tyrant's ideas were different and he did not allow the legal succession to occur in accordance to the Constitution in force, appointing instead Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleó as a figurehead President, in reality being Castro the one who controlled the reins of power.

Dr. Nieto went into exile in that same year 1959 and established himself and his family in New York City working for the American Cancer Society for 10 years until his retirement, moving later on, to the city of Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

After this exemplary life, full of love and respect to his profession, his family and his Fatherland, Dr. Adolfo E. Nieto passed away in that Floridian city on January 13, 1980, in painful exile, surrounded by the love and support of his wife, children, grandchildren and friends, being his last thoughts always placed in his essential life goals: His native land, his family and the Cuban Judicial Power, his conduct and example remaining as something imperishable in the legitimate pride of his compatriots.

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