The United States carried out its first federal execution in 17 years, putting to death an Oklahoma man who was found guilty of murdering an Arkansas family in the 1990s, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) told Sputnik on Tuesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th July, 2020) The United States carried out its first federal execution in 17 years, putting to death an Oklahoma man who was found guilty of murdering an Arkansas family in the 1990s, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) told Sputnik on Tuesday.
"On July 14, 2020, Daniel Lewis Lee was executed by lethal injection pursuant to a sentence imposed by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas," the BOP said in an emailed statement. "He was pronounced dead at 8:07 a.m. Eastern Standard Time by the Vigo County Coroner in Terre Haute, Indiana."
Daniel Lewis Lee was killed over the objections of the victims' family after the US Supreme Court in a late-night opinion ruled that the execution could go ahead.
Before he was put to death, Lee reiterated that he was an innocent man, saying, "I didn't do it. ... I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I'm not a murderer," according to the Associated Press.
The BOP explained in the statement that Lee was found guilty of killing an 8-year-old girl, Sarah Elizabeth Powell, and her parents, William Frederick Mueller and Nancy Ann Mueller,�in January 1996.
The murders were part of his effort to get funds for a white supremacist organization, according to the BOP.
"After overpowering the Muellers, interrogating their daughter, and stealing approximately $80,000 worth of cash, guns, and ammunition, Lee and an accomplice shot the three victims with a stun gun, duct-taped plastic trash bags over their heads, weighed down their bodies with rocks, and drowned them in the Illinois Bayou," the BOP said. "On May 4, 1999, a jury found Lee guilty of numerous offenses, including three counts of murder in aid of racketeering, and he was sentenced to death."
The US District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday delayed the execution to allow time for legal challenges to the federal government's lethal injection procedure. But the US Supreme Court in an overnight ruling overturned the district court's order, allowing the execution to go ahead.
The execution was the first to be carried out by the federal government since 2003, though several individual states have imposed death penalties. Two more federal executions are scheduled for this week.
The administration of US President Donald Trump ordered the resumption of capital punishment for federal prisoners back in the summer of 2019. The move triggered concerns both inside the country and abroad, with the European Union calling on the US government to review the decision running counter to the global trend to abolish death penalty.
