The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the resumption of executions at the federal level after a 17-year hiatus, overturning the suspension of four executions previously ruled by a Washington court.
"We are annulling the preliminary order of the district court and the executions can take place as planned," the Supreme Court said, referring to the executions of four death row inmates who were suspended yesterday, Monday, by a judge.
Daniel Louis Lee was executed in Indiana. His last words were: "I did not do it. I have made many mistakes in my life, but I am not a murderer. An innocent man is killed. " Daniel Lewis, a former white supremacist, was sentenced to death for the murders of three members of a family, including an 8-year-old, in Arkansas in 1996.
His execution was scheduled for Monday, but was postponed as Judge Tanya Chatkan of the Washington District Court yesterday ordered the Department of Justice to delay the four executions scheduled for July and August.
The judge had ruled that not all remedies for the four death row inmates had been exhausted and in particular that their appeal against the new protocol of executions with lethal injection solution adopted in 2019 should be considered.
"The scientific evidence presented in court clearly indicates that the 2019 Protocol may cause the plaintiffs extreme pain and unnecessary pain during their execution," Chatkan said in her ruling. He also said that their appeal might be accepted by another court, claiming that the new protocol, based on which only one drug is used in the execution, the powerful barbiturated pentobarbital, violates the Constitution that prohibits "harsh and unusual" punishments.
"It is absolutely shameful that the government (…) carried out this execution in a hurry, in the middle of the night, while the country was asleep. "We hope that when the country wakes up it will be as angry as we are," said Ruth Friedman, Lee's lawyer. He also said that the execution took place even though Daniel Luis Lee's lawyer was unable to attend.
It is noted that many relatives of Daniel Lee's victims have been asking for the execution to be postponed since last week because it was dangerous for them to attend due to the pandemic. In fact, on Sunday, Ter Ot prison announced that one of its employees had contracted the new coronavirus.
According to CNN, a spokesman for the victims' family said its members were "devastated" to be able to watch the execution and that "the government did everything possible to prevent them from being there".
For his part, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Lee was given the punishment he deserved, saying the American people have consciously allowed the death penalty at the federal level for the most heinous crimes.
In the last 45 years, only three people have been executed by US federal authorities. Among them was Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people in 1995. McVeigh was executed in 2001.