First federal execution carried out by US since 2003
Daniel Lewis Lee, a 47-year-old man, has been executed at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is the first federal execution carried out by the US in almost two decades. Lee was convicted on the charges of killing an Arkansas family in the 1990s. According to the prison officials, Lee belonged to Yukon, Oklahoma.
Lee killed the family in a plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest. He received a lethal injection in the federal prison on Thursday. He said just before his execution, “You are killing an innocent man. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, nut I am not a murderer.” According to federal officials, Lee is the first prisoner to be executed since 2003.
Two other federal execution and scheduled later this week. One of the two executions is currently on hold in a separate legal claim. The execution of Lee went off after a series of legal volleys. The Supreme Court jumped in and allowed the execution to move forward. William Barr, the attorney general of the US, said, “It is the duty of the Justice Department to carry out the sentences imposed by the courts.”
If a court issues a death penalty to a prisoner, the Justice Department must have to carry it out. It will bring a sense of closure to the victims and those in communities where the killings happened, Barr added. According to the reports, the relatives of the family killed by Lee opposed this idea. They said that Lee deserved life in a prison sentence.
Chevie Kehoe, the codefendant of Lee, received life in prison sentence by the court in this case. Kehoe was also a reputed ringleader. Lee was pronounced dead at 8:07 a.m. EDT, on Thursday. His last words before the execution were, “I am not a murderer. You’re killing an innocent man.” Lee was killed by receiving a lethal injection. The Justice Department of the US will carry out two other executions later this week.
