Daniel Lewis Lee executed after Supreme Court clears the way for first federal execution in 17 years
“These executions have been scheduled not because it's time, but because it's the political season and the president wants to have an execution under his belt as he gets into the campaign and the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention.” - Abraham Bonowitz, co-director of Death Penalty Action
(CNN) -- Daniel Lewis Lee, a convicted killer, was executed Tuesday morning in the first federal execution in 17 years after the Supreme Court issued an overnight ruling that it could proceed.
(CNN) -- Daniel Lewis Lee, a convicted killer, was executed Tuesday morning in the first federal execution in 17 years after the Supreme Court issued an overnight ruling that it could proceed.
Lee was pronounced dead by the coroner at 8:07 a.m. ET in Terrre Haute, Indiana. His last words were "I didn't do it. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life but I'm not a murderer. You're killing an innocent man," according to a pool report.
The Supreme Court cleared the way for the resumption of the federal death penalty in an unsigned order released after 2 a.m. ET Tuesday.
The court wiped away a lower court order temporarily blocking the execution of Lee in a 5-4 vote.
Lee, a one-time white supremacist who killed a family of three, was scheduled to be executed Monday. A federal judge blocked the planned execution of Lee, and three others, citing ongoing challenges to the federal government's lethal injection protocol.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit late Monday refused the Justice Department's request to stay the injunction. The Justice Department had appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.
RELATED | USA | Judge blocks first federal execution in 17 years
RELATED | USA | Judge blocks first federal execution in 17 years
CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the court's ruling.
The Supreme Court said that the death row inmates, including Lee, bringing the case "have not established that they are likely to succeed" in their challenge in part because the one drug protocol proposed by the government -- single dose pentobarbital -- has become a 'mainstay' of state executions."
Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reiterated in one dissent something he has said before: he thinks it's time for the court to revisit the constitutionality of the death penalty.
"The resumption of federal executions promises to provide examples that illustrate the difficulties of administering the death penalty consistent with the Constitution," he said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Ginsburg, wrote separately to criticize the court's "accelerated decision making "
"One my oldest friends Ruth Friedman, who represented Daniel Lee, says: ""Over the 4 hours it took for [the govt to seek to lift the stay] Daniel Lee REMAINED STRAPPED TO THE GURNEY... & while multiple motions remained pending, without notice to counsel, he was executed." - Clive Stafford Smith
"The court forever deprives respondents of their ability to press a constitutional challenge to their lethal injections," she said.
Three other appeals seeking to delay the execution are also pending at the Supreme Court. One concerns the family of Lee's victims who are concerned about traveling and going to a federal prison during the coronavirus pandemic. A second regards evidence presented by prosecutors during his sentencing hearing.
Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons to move forward with executions of some "death-row inmates convicted of murdering, and in some cases torturing and raping, the most vulnerable in our society — children and the elderly."
The scheduled executions reignited legal challenges to the specific protocol used in executions and reinvigorated a debate concerning the constitutionality of lethal injection.
The scheduled executions reignited legal challenges to the specific protocol used in executions and reinvigorated a debate concerning the constitutionality of lethal injection.
Earlene Peterson -- whose daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law were tortured, killed and dumped in a lake by Lee and an accomplice -- has opposed Lee's execution, telling CNN last year that she did not want it done in her name.
Source: CNN, David Shortell, Ariane de Vogue and Chandelis Duster, July 14, 2020
US executes first federal prisoner in 17 years
US murderer Daniel Lewis Lee has been put to death, hours after the Supreme Court allowed the first executions of federal inmates in 17 years.
Several executions were initially delayed when a judge ruled on Monday that there were still unresolved legal challenges.
The condemned prisoners had argued that lethal injections constitute "cruel and unusual punishments".
But the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that "executions may proceed as planned".
Last year, the Trump administration said it would resume federal executions.
Lee was executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, early on Tuesday.
“These executions have been scheduled not because it's time, but because it's the political season and the president wants to have an execution under his belt as he gets into the campaign and the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention.” - Abraham Bonowitz, co-director of Death Penalty Action
Some relatives of his victims had opposed the execution and 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, said she wanted the 47-year-old to be given life in jail, the same sentence as his accomplice.
Who was Daniel Lewis Lee?
Lee was convicted of torturing and killing a family of three in Arkansas in 1996, dumping their bodies in a lake.
Postponed from December, his execution had been rescheduled for 16:00 (20:00 GMT) on 13 July, but was blocked by a ruling from District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
"The court... finds that the likely harm that plaintiffs would suffer if the court does not grant injunctive relief far outweighs any potential harm to defendants," the judge said.
Her ruling was consequently overruled by the Supreme Court, which said: "The plaintiffs in this case have not made the showing required to justify last-minute intervention by a Federal Court."
Federal and state executions - what's the difference?
Under the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts - at a national level - or in state courts, at a regional level.
RELATED | USA | Vast Majority on Federal Death Row Have Significant Impairments
RELATED | USA | Vast Majority on Federal Death Row Have Significant Impairments
Certain crimes, such as counterfeiting currency or mail theft, are automatically tried at a federal level, as are cases in which the US is a party or those which involve constitutional violations. Others can be tried in federal courts based on the severity of the crimes.
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.
Future executions
The previous 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.
Daniel Lee’s attorney’s statement about this morning's execution.
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 execution of Lee - and the four others that were delayed - were all set to use an injection containing the drug pentobarbital.
The inmates have argued the drug violates their constitutional right not to have "cruel and unusual punishments inflicted", because it has allegedly caused additional medical problems in previous uses.
A lawyer for one of the four federal death-row inmates said in a statement on Monday: "The government has been trying to plough forward with these executions despite many unanswered questions about the legality of its new execution protocol."Why the change in rules on executions?
The Trump administration said it would resume federal executions after a long hiatus last year.
In a statement at the time, Attorney General William Barr said: "Under administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals.
"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."
Waiting to Die: Daniel Lee Execution
Daniel Lewis Lee was executed by lethal injection 16 hours after his scheduled death. Lee used his final moments to stare through the glass of the media witness room to say “you’re killing an innocent man.”
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Daniel Lewis Lee was executed by lethal injection 16 hours after his scheduled death. Lee used his final moments to stare through the glass of the media witness room to say “you’re killing an innocent man.”
Daniel Lewis Lee was a white supremacist convicted of the 1996 killing of a family of three; William Mueller, Nancy Mueller, and her 8-year-old daughter Sarah Powell. Lee and an accomplice shot the family with a stun gun before taping plastic bags over their heads, weighing them down with rocks and dumping them in a bayou.
I served as a media witness to Lee’s execution. Mine was one of the last faces he saw before poison was pushed through his veins.
The Department of Justice scheduled Lee’s execution for Monday, July 13th at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. A back-and-forth legal battle would push his actual death back by 16 hours.
I reported to the federal prison Media Center in Terre Haute, Indiana at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Monday. That’s where I got my temperature checked, was asked if I was displaying any coronavirus symptoms and issued a face mask. Forty-five minutes later, I was driven with other media witnesses to the Terre Haute United States Penitentiary where I was processed by going through a metal detector and body scanner. The white vans the media witnesses were escorted in were cleaned and swapped out before our return to the Media Center.
We came back to the center, which is actually a staff training facility, instead of moving on to the death chamber. I watched the clock tick closer to 4 o’clock without access to my cell phone or the world outside the prison.
Time kept passing and I kept waiting. Media witnesses were eventually told we could have our phones again. That’s when I learned about continued legal delays.
It was after 5 o’clock when I was finally told media witnesses would be able to leave, but we would all have to go through processing again when we were called back.
Each media witness would return to the center later that evening only to be told once again that we could leave. We would be notified as soon as the DOJ cleared the legal hurdles. Public information officers with the Bureau of Prisons told us they were on standby and still ready to move forward with the execution.
A BOP official started a group text chain, including herself, and each media witness.
At 2:18 a.m. we received this message:
“Please make your way back to the Media Center. We will be resuming the execution at approximately 4 am. Please respond that you have received this message.”
That text message would be followed by a BOP call, a call to my newsroom, and a mad dash back to the Media Center.
I drove up an empty highway 41 before turning left down a dark road toward the prison. It was eerily quiet. Fog coated spots in the road and I could barely see the prison towers through the haze. I arrived at the Media Center and waited for the other media witnesses to arrive before going through processing again.
By 3:58 in the morning, the media witness vans pulled away from the processing area toward the execution chamber making a right on Justice Road. Media witnesses were the last to enter the building around 4:20 a.m.
The building is divided into rooms. Eight media witnesses, including myself, were joined by two officers and two officials in one room. The family of Lee’s victims were in one room and Lee’s guests were in yet another.
Lee invited his spiritual advisor, an Appalachian pagan minister, to his execution. Two attorneys and three family members were also invited.
Once inside the media room, there was a flurry of note-taking. From the grey plastic chairs to the blue-green speckled carpet, the green painted trim surrounding two windows into the actual death chamber, and Centers for Disease Control posters warning of the dangers of coronavirus; I jotted down all I could.
I thought the execution would begin quickly. What I didn’t know was Lee’s counsel raised a last-minute appeal that would delay the process even further. I would sit in that room for more than three hours before the curtains would rise and Lee’s execution would be carried out. All the while, we would sit right next to each other in our face masks with hand sanitizer on the floor next to our chairs.
A BOP official attempted to leave the room to get us more information about the delay but quickly turned our attention to two square windows in front of us. At 7:46 in the morning, the curtain was lifted. I quickly stood with my pad of paper and pen ready to document the first federal execution in 17 years.
Daniel Lee was already on the gurney. He lifted his head and looked directly into the media witness room. Lee could see in to every room except the one holding the family of his victims.
After a brief statement about the crimes for which Lee was convicted and his execution, Lee was able to share his final thoughts.
Daniel Lewis Lee used his last breaths to maintain his innocence.
He said, “I bear no responsibility…” and “I didn’t do it.”
He told media witnesses to ask the judge about DNA evidence that was left out of the trial. Lee made reference to a first, second, and final meal saying “it should speak for itself” but he did not provide any more detail. The BOP declined to share information about his last meal with the press.
Before he resigned himself to what was to happen, he said, “You’re killing an innocent man.”
Strapped to the gurney, Lee wore a brown shirt. A blue-green sheet covered him from his feet to his chest. Both arms were outstretched and intravenous lines were attached to both hands. Those lines ran through a square box in the wall behind him. A medical team behind that wall would administer the fatal dose of pentobarbital. His right hand rested on a white towel.
With the execution underway, Lee would turn his head to the side and occasionally look up. I watched his breathing slow from meaningful inhales and exhales to barely detectable movements. His eyes closed. Lee’s movements became so weak his breathing appeared more like light rumblings on his belly than actual breaths.
He stopped moving and I waited.
“Death has occurred” came over the speaker in the media room at 8:07 a.m. on Tuesday, July 14th, and the curtains were lowered. The wait was over.
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde