EXECUTIONS WELL DESERVED

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The first federal execution in the United States for more than 17 years was set to go ahead in Indiana on last Monday  following a ruling by an appeal court. The US murderer Daniel Lewis Lee had been put to death, hours after the Supreme Court allowed the first execution of the federal inmate to proceed.

Several other executions were initially delayed when a judge ruled on Monday Luly 13^th that there were still unresolved legal challenges.

The condemned prisoners had argued that lethal injections constitute "cruel and unusual punishments" 

In the United States, there are four kinds of executions. They are hangings, shootings, gassings, electrocutions and by lethal injections.   Gassings were slow and in death by lethal injections in the past if the condemned was still conscious when the other drugs did their thing.  That doesn’t happen anymore since only one drug is used. It puts the condemned into a deep sleep and while or she is in that state, the drug stops the heart from beating.

Last year, the Trump administration said it would resume federal executions.

Lee was executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, early on Monday morning.(July 13^th  2020.

Daniel Lewis Lee and his accomplice were convicted of killing three members of the same family in Kansas in 1996 and threw their bodies into a nearby  lake.

Earlene Peterson, 81, whose daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law were killed by Lee, said that she wanted the 47-year-old accomplice who was be given life in jail, to get the same sentence as Lee got. It is possible that he was offered the opportunity t0 testify against Lee  in order to have his life saved from the death penalty.

Lee’s execution was postponed in December. His s execution had been rescheduled for four in the afternoon GMT) on 13^th of July, but was blocked by a ruling from District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The judge said, "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 the defendants.”

Her ruling was consequently overruled by the Supreme Court, which said: "The plaintiff in this case has not made the showing required to justify last-minute intervention by a Federal Court." But the ruling means the execution by lethal injection could then  proceed.

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.

Some of the victims' relatives oppose his execution and sought to have it delayed, saying attending it could expose them to coronavirus.   That is utter nonsense. They can wear masks and be seated apart.

The appeal court overturned a decision by a lower court that put the execution of 47-year-old Lee on hold, saying no federal statute or regulation gave the victims the right to attend the execution.

In its ruling, the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals said the family's claim "lacks any arguable legal basis and is therefore frivolous".

The relatives are going to appeal to the Supreme Court. It will have to act before four in the afternoon,  Monday local time (20:00 GMT) to stop the execution, the New York Times reports.

Lee, who tortured and killed a family of three before dumping their bodies in a lake, had originally been scheduled for execution in last December. His case was delayed after the courts blocked the death sentence from being carried out.

While he lay on the death gurney, hc cried out, “You are executing an innocent man.”

Earlene Peterson, 81, whose daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law were killed by Lee, has opposed the execution.

She instead says she wants Lee to be given life in jail, the same sentence as Lee's accomplice.

“She said,” , Daniel Lee damaged my life, but I can’t believe taking his life is going to change any of that.”

Lee's planned execution is one of four that had been scheduled for July and August. All four men were convicted of killing children. Killing children is a sure way to be executed in the United States,

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."

The move has been criticised as a political decision, with campaigners also expressing concern about cases being rushed.

The last inmate executed by the federal death penalty was Louis Jones Jr, a 53-year-old Gulf War veteran who murdered 19-year-old soldier Tracie Joy McBride.

Under the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts - at a national level - or state courts, at a regional level.

Certain crimes, such as counterfeiting currency or mail theft, are automatically tried at a federal level, as are cases in which the United States is a party or those which involve constitutional violations. Others can be tried in federal courts based on the severity of the crimes.

In the past, I addressed the United Nations while speaking  on the subject of the death penalty and I spoke on a national television  show and prepared a report on executions for the Canadian parliament.  I have stated that there are times when murderers should  be executed. I said that terrorists, mass and serial killers and criminals who torture their victims to death and those who kill children should be executed. I haven’t changed my mind.

In Canada, capital punishment is abolished because of the fear that innocent persons may be executed.  Many people who were convicted of murder in Canada were later declared innocent. It would have been a shame on Canada if these innocent persons were executed

Texas remains the strictest applicant of the US death penalty but its increasing reluctance to put criminals to death reflects a national trend.

Kent Whitaker supported the death penalty until his son, who arranged for a gunman to kill Mr. Whitaker and the rest of his family  resulted that his son landed on death row in Texas.

Now Mr. Whitaker, the sole survivor of the attack, is desperately seeking clemency for his son, Thomas Whitaker before his execution that is scheduled for 22 February of next year.

"The petition is based on a legal overstep that shouldn't have happened," says Mr. Whitaker. "The district attorney chose to pursue the death penalty considering that every one of the victims of  the killings  such as  Whitaker, and the  relatives of his wife who was  begging the killer  not to kill her.

It is beyond me as to why he wants to spare his son the death penalty considering that it was his son who arranged for the killer  to kill  his own mother and the other victims.

President Trump has been a staunch supporter of capital punishment and has proposed several extreme uses of it, including for selling drugs and for all murders involving state and local police officers. It was not a surprise that he would seek to have executions carried out. I think the biggest surprise is that it took as long as it did.

Selling drugs on the street doesn’t deserve the death  penalty but illegal manufacturing and shipping illicit drugs to the United States certainly does deserve the death   penalty.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris described the death penalty as "immoral and deeply flawed", while Bernie Sanders said he would abolish it if he is elected.

Another candidate for the Democratic nomination, Pete Buttigieg, said "race and geography" were factors in determining who was sentenced to death. If that is so, then I am  also concerned.

They are Daniel Lewis Lee, a white supremacist who was convicted in Arkansas of murdering a family of three; Lezmond Mitchell, a Native American who was convicted in Arizona of murdering a grandmother and her granddaughter; Wesley Ira Purkey, who raped and murdered a teenage girl; Alfred Bourgeois, who sexually molested and killed his young daughter; and Dustin Lee Honken, who shot five people dead.

Can anyone in his or her mind justify saving these horrible killer’s lives? Please don’t give me that religious crap that it is up to God to punish them.  Where was God when the victim’s were being killed

Mr. Barr will allow the prison authorities to use the single drug Pentobarbital in place of a three-drug procedure previously used in federal executions. The drug is a potent sedative that slows down the body, including the nervous system, to the point of death.

Under the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts or state courts, at a regional level. Certain crimes that apply nationally, such as counterfeiting currency or mail theft, are automatically tried at a federal level. If an offence is committed against a federal entity or at a federal building or other property, then it will be tried at federal level.

Four years later, a Supreme Court decision reinstated the death penalty to a number of states and in 1988 the government passed legislation that made the death penalty available again at a 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 have since been executed, the last one in 2003.

 There are 62 inmates currently on federal death row.

They include Dylann Roof who murdered nine people in a Charleston church in 2015, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Four years later, a Supreme Court decision reinstated the death penalty to a number of states and in 1988 the government passed legislation that made the death penalty available again at a 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 have since been executed, the last one in 2003.

There are 62 inmates currently on federal death row.

They include Dylann Roof who murdered nine people in a Charleston church in 2015, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The five executions to be scheduled would take place at the US Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana, and additional executions would take place at a later date, the justice department said.

For more than a decade and a half, the federal death penalty was mostly an afterthought. Although there was no formal moratorium on the procedure, as there was in some states where opposition to executions has been growing, a combination of administrative inertia, protracted appeals processes, practical obstacles and the relatively few number of federal death-row inmates combined to bring about  executions to a de-facto halt.

The Trump administration now wants to change that, even if a shortage of the drugs used in lethal injections remains a significant obstacle.

The president has expressed a harsh attitude toward convicted criminals in the past, claiming that they are treated too gently and given too many opportunities to appeal against their sentences.

While a majority of Americans say they still favour the death penalty in certain instances, opinion surveys indicate that the American public is turning against capital punishment, with a particular eye toward allegations that it is frequently unjustly imposed.

of course that suggests that while the Trump administration's announcement will draw some sharp criticism from activists, it is unlikely to cause significant political waves. The Americans will just have to wait  and see.  Of course the next election may bring about a different decision.