U.S. carries out the 1st federal execution in nearly 2 decades after Supreme Court clears the way

They noted that Lee’s co-defendant and the reputed ringleader, Chevie Kehoe, received a life sentence.

Kehoe, of Colville, Washington, recruited Lee in 1995 to join his white supremacist orgaization, known as the Aryan Peoples’ Republic. Two years later, they were arrested for the killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell, in Tilly, Arkansas, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock.

At their 1999 trial, prosecutors said Kehoe and Lee stole guns and $50,000 in cash from the Muellers as part of their plan to establish a whites-only nation.

Prosecutors said Lee and Kehoe incapacitated the Muellers and questioned Sarah about where they could find money and ammunition. Then, they used stun guns on the victims, sealed trash bags with duct tape on their heads to suffocate them, taped rocks to their bodies and dumped them in a nearby bayou.

A U.S. District Court judge put a hold on Lee’s execution on Monday, over concerns from death row inmates on how executions were to be carried out, and an appeals court upheld it, but the high court overturned it. That delay came after an appeals court on Sunday overturned a hold that had been put in place last week after the victims’ relatives argued they would be put at high risk for the coronavirus if they had to travel to attend the execution.

Lee’s execution was then set to happen at 4 a.m. EDT, but a last-minute legal question was raised by his lawyers. The Justice Department said it filed a request with the court to straighten it out but went through with the execution.

A U.S. marshal lifted a black telephone inside the execution room — a small square room inside the prison with green tiles and windows looking at the witness rooms — and asked if there was anything to impede the execution. He said there was not and the execution could proceed.

Lee had a pulse oximeter on a finger of his left hand, to monitor his oxygen level, and his arms, which had tattoos, were in black restraints. The IV tubes were coming through a metal panel in the wall.

He breathed heavily before the drug was injected and moved his legs and feet. As the drug was being administered, he raised his head to look around. In a few moments, his chest was no longer moving.

Lee was in the execution chamber with two men who the Bureau of Prisons would only identify as “senior BOP officials,” a U.S. marshal and his spiritual adviser, whom a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson described as an “Appalachian pagan minister.” They did not wear masks, and Lee also was not wearing a mask.

One of the senior Prison officials in the room declared Lee’s time of death at 8:07 a.m., and the curtain closed.

Two other federal executions are scheduled for later this week, though one remains on hold in a separate legal claim.

There have been two state executions in the U.S. since the pandemic forced shutdowns nationwide in mid-March — one in Texas and one in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Alabama carried out one in early March.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/us-supreme-court-allows-federal-executions-to-proceed.html