White supremacist's chilling last words before execution
The US government on Tuesday carried out the first federal execution in almost two decades, putting to death a man who was convicted of killing an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.
The execution came over the objection of the victims' family.
Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, died by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
"I didn't do it, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I'm not a murderer,” Lee said just before he was executed.
His final words were: "You're killing an innocent man."
The execution of Daniel Lewis Lee
A US 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, and his arms, which had tattoos, were in black restraints.
The IV tubes were coming through a metal panel in the wall.
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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 US Marshal and his spiritual adviser, who a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson described as an "Appalachian pagan minister".
They did not wear masks and Lee was also not wearing a mask.
One of the senior prison officials in the room declared Lee's time of death at 8.07am (10.07pm AEST), and the curtain closed.
The decision to move forward with the execution – the first by the Bureau of Prisons since 2003 – drew scrutiny from civil rights groups and the relatives of Lee's victims, who had sued to try to halt it, citing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.
The pandemic has killed more than 135,000 people in the US and is ravaging prisons nationwide.
Critics argued that the government was creating an unnecessary and manufactured urgency for political gain.
"The government has been trying to plough forward with these executions despite many unanswered questions about the legality of its new execution protocol," said Shawn Nolan, one of the attorneys for the men facing federal execution.
The execution of Lee went off after a series of legal volleys that ended when the Supreme Court stepped in early Tuesday in a 5-4 ruling and allowed it to move forward.
Attorney General William Barr has said the Justice Department has a duty to carry out the sentences imposed by the courts, including the death penalty, and to bring a sense of closure to the victims and those in the communities where the killings happened.
Victims’ family members opposed execution
Relatives of those killed by Lee in 1996 strongly opposed that idea and long argued that Lee deserved a sentence of life in prison.
They wanted to be present to counter any contention that the execution was being done on their behalf.
"For us it is a matter of being there and saying: 'This is not being done in our name; we do not want this’," relative Monica Veillette said.
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 organisation, 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.
At their 1999 trial, prosecutors said Kehoe and Lee stole guns and $50,000 (AU$70,000) 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.
Execution delayed by numerous legal challenges
A US 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 4am EDT, but a last-minute legal question was raised by his lawyers.
The Justice Department said in a statement it filed a request with the court to straighten it out but went through with the execution.
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 US since the pandemic forced shutdowns nationwide in mid-March – one in Texas and one in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. Alabama carried out one in early March.
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