Home United States USA — mix First federal execution in 17 years scheduled for Monday despite victim's family's...

First federal execution in 17 years scheduled for Monday despite victim's family's opposition

218
0
SHARE

Murderer Daniel Lewis Lee is slated to die by lethal injection even though the victim’s family objects due, among other things, to concern they could be exposed to the coronavirus by attending.
Terre Haute, Indiana — The federal government is planning to carry out the first federal execution in nearly two decades on Monday, over the objection of the family of the victims and after a volley of legal proceedings over the coronavirus pandemic.
Daniel Lewis Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 4 p.m. on Monday at a federal prison in Indiana. He was convicted in Arkansas of the 1996 killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell.
The execution, the first of a federal death row inmate since 2003, comes after a federal appeals court lifted an injunction on Sunday that had been put in place last week after the victims’ family argued they would be put at high risk for coronavirus if they had to travel to attend the execution. The family had vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The decision to move forward with the execution — and two others scheduled later in the week — during a global health pandemic that’s killed more than 135,000 people and is ravaging prisons nationwide drew scrutiny from civil rights groups and the family of Lee’s victims.
The decision has been criticized as a dangerous and political move. Critics argue that the government is creating an unnecessary and manufactured urgency around a topic that isn’t high on the list of Americans’ concerns right now. It is also likely to add a new front to the national conversation about criminal justice reform in the lead-up to the 2020 elections.
In an interview with The Associated Press last week, Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department has a duty to carry out the sentences imposed by the courts, including the death penalty, and to bring a sense of closure to the victims and those in the communities where the killings happened.

Continue reading...