The first federal execution that was carried out in the United States in more than a decade is a demonstration of the government's disregard of the rule of law and gives grounds for a public outcry, Amy Bergquist, Senior Staff Attorney at the Advocates For Human Rights and Vice President of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, told Sputnik
GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2020) The first Federal execution that was carried out in the United States in more than a decade is a demonstration of the government's disregard of the rule of law and gives grounds for a public outcry, Amy Bergquist, Senior Staff Attorney at the Advocates For Human Rights and Vice President of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, told Sputnik.
On Tuesday, Daniel Lewis Lee, a 47-year-old triple murder convict, was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital at a prison in the state of Indiana shortly after the Supreme Court cleared the way for executions in four federal cases. A federal prisoner was last put to death in 2003.
"The government's disregard for the rule of law warrants public outcry.�According to Daniel Lee's attorney, he was executed while multiple motions remained pending, without counsel being present, without authorities even having the decency to notify his counsel. The government has made a mockery of the rule of law," Bergquist said.
The execution went ahead after the Supreme Court overturned a stay by a lower court.
Last week, a US federal judge in Indiana halted the execution after the victims' relatives argued that they had a right to be present at Lee's execution and launched a legal suit against the Department of Justice to delay it being carried until the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic was over.
"When federal authorities announced plans last year to resume executions, they said, 'We owe it to the victims and their families.' Yet it was the families of the victims last night who were part of the chorus of people calling on the government to halt the execution. Prosecutors and politicians who want to seem 'tough on crime,' particularly in a high-stakes election year, too often use victims and their family members as pawns," Bergquist said.
The fact that the execution took place after family members and the media were told the execution was called off, after the warrant had expired, "shows that officials had no interest in honoring the memory of the people who had been killed," she continued.
Last week, more than 1,000 faith leaders from different religions urged US President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr to halt scheduled executions of federal prisoners. The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty has also called for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty while the world battles the global pandemic.
The attorney noted that in order to alleviate prison crowding and reduce health risks, Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco and Zimbabwe have commuted sentences, including sentences of people facing capital punishment.
The administration of 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.
"The federal government is stepping up executions while states and countries around the world are abolishing the death penalty. Only 56 countries actively retain the death penalty, and in that regard the federal government is in the company of countries like China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. With New Hampshire and Colorado eliminating the death penalty from their laws, and with more and more jurisdictions in the United States realizing that the death penalty is costly, ineffective, and unjust, federal authorities are ignoring not only the wishes of victims and their families, but the will of the people," Bergquist said.
Two more federal executions are scheduled in the United States later in the week.
