Triple murderer Daniel Lewis Lee is among those facing the death penalty
WASHINGTON, July 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for the first executions of federal prisoners in 17 years.
Several executions were delayed after a judge ruled on Monday that there were still unresolved legal challenges against the justice department.
Among those facing the death penalty is triple murderer Daniel Lewis Lee, who was due to be executed on Monday.
The condemned prisoners have argued that lethal injections constitute “cruel and unusual punishments”.
The Supreme Court voted 5-4 that “executions may proceed as planned”.
In a statement at the time, Attorney General William Barr said: “The justice department upholds the rule of law – and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”
Some of the relatives of Lee’s victims oppose his execution in Indiana and had sought to have it delayed, arguing that attending it could expose them to coronavirus.
Earlene Peterson, 81, whose daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law were killed by Lee, has said she wants the 47-year-old to be given life in jail, the same sentence as his accomplice.
The Trump administration’s move has been criticised as a political decision, with campaigners expressing concern about cases being rushed.
The last inmate executed by federal death penalty was Louis Jones Jr, a 53-year-old Gulf War veteran who murdered 19-year-old soldier Tracie Joy McBride.
Three more federal executions are scheduled in the near future. All three prisoners are, like Lee, child killers:
- Wesley Ira Purkey, who was sentenced in Missouri in 2003 for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl whose body he dismembered, burnt and dumped in a septic pond, is due to be executed on Wednesday
- Dustin Lee Honken, sentenced in Iowa in 2004 for shooting dead five people including two girls aged six and 10, is due to be executed on Friday
- Keith Dwayne Nelson, sentenced in Missouri in 2001 for the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl behind a church, is set to be executed next month
The death penalty was outlawed at state and federal level by a 1972 Supreme Court decision that cancelled all existing death penalty statutes.
A 1976 Supreme Court decision allowed states to reinstate the death penalty and in 1988 the government passed legislation that made it available again at federal level.
According to data collected by the Death Penalty Information Center, 78 people were sentenced to death in federal cases between 1988 and 2018 but only three were executed. There are 62 inmates currently on federal death row. — NNN-AGENCIES
