(Washington) A US court on Friday suspended a federal execution scheduled for Monday and which would have been the first in 17 years, at the request of relatives of the victims of the condemned, worried about their health in these times of coronavirus.
Posted on 10 July 2020 at 23 h 28
France Media Agency
The Department of Justice appealed a few hours after this decision. Actions can go as far as the United States Supreme Court.
The government of Donald Trump has planned to execute on Monday Daniel Lee, a white supremacist sentenced in 1999 to the death penalty for the murder of a couple and an eight-year-old girl.
But relatives of his victims, including the grandmother of the granddaughter, Earlene Peterson, 81 years, had brought justice this week to extend the deadline.
Citing their vulnerability to the new coronavirus, the complainants explained that they were faced with an impossible choice, between their right to attend the last moments of the convicted person and concerns for their health in the event of a gathering.
“The government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that the execution is carried out quickly”, but that comes after the interest of treating the relatives of the victims “with fairness, respect and dignity”, decided judge Jane Magnus -Stinson of an Indiana federal court.
“The family hopes that the federal government will support them by not appealing this judgment,” said their lawyer Baker Kurrus in a press release. “We hope the government finally acts in a way that eases the pain of Mr. me Peterson and his family rather than weigh it down, “he added.
Mr. me Peterson, an opponent of capital punishment, has repeatedly called on President Donald Trump to show “leniency” to Daniel Lee, assuring that he does not want him to be executed.
Saying “acting on behalf of the public and families”, the Republican administration has scheduled four federal executions this summer.
In the United States, most crimes are tried at the state level, but the federal justice can deal with the most serious acts (terrorist attacks, racist crimes, etc.) or committed on military bases, between several states or on Native American reservations.
In the last 45 years, only three people have been executed at the federal level, including Timothy McVeigh responsible for the terrorist attack. 'Oklahoma City (168 dead in 1995) in 2001. The last federal execution dates back to 2003.