Federal government executes first person since 2003

The 8th Execution of 2020

On the morning of July 14, 2020, the Trump administration carried out the first federal execution since 2003, following a series of court battles and a Supreme Court order, released shortly after 2 a.m., clearing the way for the lethal injection to take place, reported the  Washington Post.

Federal officials executed Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, who was convicted in 1999 of killing a family of three, at a penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. Lee was pronounced dead at 8:07 a.m. Tuesday, the Bureau of Prisons said.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I’m not a murderer,” Lee said when asked if he wanted to make a final statement, according to the pool report. His final words were: “You’re killing an innocent man.”

Attorney General William P. Barr had said recently that officials “owe it to the victims of these horrific crimes, and to the families left behind.” Although he defied the family Lee's victims who wanted the execution postponed due to COVID-19 concerns.

Although the death penalty has been in decline nationwide for years, with executions and death sentences down significantly, the Justice Department has publicly pushed against that trend for nearly a year. The department has argued in court and in public statements that it needed to carry out lawful sentences, citing the gravity of the crimes involved. 

Last year, the department laid out a new lethal injection protocol — using one drug, pentobarbital — and said it would begin carrying out executions, leading to extended legal challenges. 

Lee had challenged his execution on his own and along with other death-row inmates. His execution was also opposed by some relatives of his victims, who argued against his death sentence in the case and sought to stop his lethal injection from taking place amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, Lee’s lethal injection — originally scheduled for 4 p.m. that afternoon — was left on hold following a judge’s order that he and other death-row inmates could pursue their court cases arguing that the new lethal-injection protocol is unconstitutional. 

An appeals court said late Monday that it would not let the executions take place as planned, but a divided Supreme Court weighed in overnight saying they could proceed. 

In an unsigned 5-4 order, the court’s conservative justices said the prisoners on death row had “not made the showing required to justify last-minute intervention.”

“It is our responsibility to ensure that method-of-execution challenges to lawfully issued sentences are resolved fairly and expeditiously, so that the question of capital punishment can remain with the people and their representatives, not the courts, to resolve,” said the opinion, which quoted court precedents.

Although the author is unclear, the opinion was the work of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

The court’s four liberal justices wrote two dissents. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, said that the court was “hastily” ending the inmates’ challenges and that as a result, there would “be no meaningful judicial review of the grave, fact-heavy challenges” they brought.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, reiterated his view that the court should examine whether the death penalty itself is unconstitutional. 

Media witnesses at Lee’s execution on Tuesday morning saw him strapped to a gurney and with an IV in his left arm and both arms restrained, according to the pool report. When the lethal drug was being injected, his breathing appeared to become labored, his chest eventually stopped moving and his lips appeared to turn blue.

Ruth Friedman, an attorney for Lee, decried the government’s decision to execute him during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It is beyond shameful that the government, in the end, carried out this execution in haste, in the middle of the night, while the country was sleeping,” she said in a statement. “We hope that upon awakening, the country will be as outraged as we are.”

Barr said that Lee had “finally faced the justice he deserved” on Tuesday morning.

“The American people have made the considered choice to permit capital punishment for the most egregious federal crimes, and justice was done today in implementing the sentence for Lee’s horrific offenses,” he said in a statement.

Even after the Supreme Court’s order, uncertainty still lingered for hours in the case. Friedman said Lee “remained strapped to a gurney” for the four hours leading up to his execution as another legal dispute played out. She said another stay was still in place.

The Justice Department said Lee would have been executed at 4 a.m., but attributed the four-hour delay that followed to his attorneys contesting whether the execution could proceed. Kerri Kupec, a department spokeswoman, called it “a last-minute procedural claim” in a statement.

Lee and another man were convicted of murdering three people, including Nancy Mueller and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell.

He and this other man, Chevie Kehoe, were part of a group intending to create a white supremacist community in the Pacific Northwest, and they traveled to Arkansas in 1996, where they robbed and murdered William Mueller, a firearms dealer, along with his wife and the child, court records show. The men placed plastic bags over their heads and threw them into a bayou, the records show.

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Wyoming Governor considering moratorium on death penalty to save money

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon told lawmakers he was considering a moratorium on death penalty as a way to save money ahead of a wave of budget cuts in response to declining state revenue, reported the Casper Star Tribune.

The announcement, which came in a meeting with members of the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee, would temporarily bring an end to the little-used practice of capital punishment in Wyoming.

“I’m looking very seriously at a moratorium on the death penalty,” Gordon said. “Whatever I can do to forestall that is an option. It costs us around a million dollars every time that is brought up. These are just luxuries — luxuries, that we will no longer be able to afford.”

While the Wyoming Legislature has so far been reluctant to eliminate the death penalty, Gordon said that the state’s looming fiscal crisis makes maintaining the death penalty an untenable option as he seeks to implement budget cuts of up to 20 percent across the board.

The state is facing a $1.5 billion revenue hole due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, as well as downturns in the energy industry.

Wyoming currently has no prisoners on death row. Some lawmakers have pushed to end the death penalty, arguing that maintaining a capital punishment system that’s rarely used is costly and unnecessary. Annually, more than $1 million is set aside to train public attorneys for the possibility of dealing with death penalty cases that rarely come across their desks — a selling point fiscal conservatives have used to try and convince their Republican colleagues to eliminate the practice in Wyoming.

“No government program in Wyoming is a bigger waste than the death penalty,” Cheyenne Republican Rep. Jared Olsen, who has been spearheading the effort to repeal the death penalty in Wyoming, wrote in an op-ed in the Star-Tribune over the weekend. “It should be the first to go.”

Gordon’s announcement was quickly praised Monday by a number of groups that have worked to oppose the death penalty over the past year, including the national organization Conservatives Concerned About The Death Penalty, which began a repeal campaign in Wyoming early last year after an effort to repeal the practice fell short in the Wyoming Senate.

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Two men free after erroneous testimony of noted expert Henry Lee revealed

Two men who spent decades in prison based in part on the erroneous testimony of world-famous forensic expert Henry Lee had all charges against them dismissed Friday by a Connecticut Superior Court judge.

The ruling by Superior Court Judge Dan Shaban came after the state Supreme Court last year vacated the felony murder convictions of Ralph “Ricky” Birch and Shawn Henning in the Dec. 1, 1985, slaying of 65-year-old Everett Carr, of New Milford.

Birch had served more than 30 years of a 55-year sentence for felony murder. Henning, who was 17 when the crime occurred, was granted probation in 2018 under new rules for teenage offenders.

 “They say the wheels of justice turn slowly,” Birch told The Hartford Courant outside the courtroom. “That’s a little bit of an understatement. It feels good. It’s been a long time coming.”

Andrew O’Shea, Birch’s attorney, said that despite an extremely bloody crime scene, no DNA evidence was ever found linking the pair to Carr, who had been stabbed 27 times, had his throat cut and suffered seven blows to the head. Despite being identified as suspects shortly after the crime, no blood was found on their clothes or in their car.

During their trials, prosecutors presented evidence from Lee — who would later gain fame as a witness in the O.J. Simpson murder case — that it was possible for the assailants to avoid getting much blood on them.

Lee also testified that a towel, which later was suggested could have been touched by the killers while cleaning up, was found in a bathroom near the crime scene with stains consistent with blood. But later tests showed it was not blood.

Litchfield State’s Attorney Dawn Gallo told Shaban that the state had decided against retrying the men because witnesses from 1985 have died or recanted testimony and retests of evidence failed to turn up anything tying Birch and Henning to the murder.

In dismissing the charges, Shaban ruled that there is no need for any further investigation of Birch and Carr, who wore T-shirts Friday reading “I didn’t do it,” and “I am innocent.” Friday’s brief hearings for the two men were streamed online.

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Mueller Defends Prosecution of Roger Stone

The former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III broke his long silence on Saturday to defend his prosecution of Roger J. Stone Jr., forcefully rebutting President Trump’s claims that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was political and illegitimate, reported the New York Times.

Speaking out the day after Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Stone’s prison sentence for obstructing an inquiry into Russia’s role in the campaign, Mr. Mueller said Mr. Stone was no innocent victim and emphasized that the president’s clemency grant did not erase the conviction on seven felony counts.

“Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes,” Mr. Mueller wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post. “He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”

Mr. Mueller seemed most aggrieved over the president’s assertions of bad faith on the part of those who prosecuted Mr. Stone and others affiliated with Mr. Trump.

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GateHouse: Hamilton and Burr, music to a historian’s ear

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

July 10, 2020

Last week, Disney+ released a film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original Broadway production of “Hamilton.” July 11, marks the 216th anniversary of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr’s infamous duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.

Whether one’s understanding of the Burr and Hamilton feud was gleaned from history books or the Broadway stage, Hamilton cost Burr the presidency and that cost Hamilton his life.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson was running for president and Burr vice president on the Democratic-Republican ticket against President John Adams, seeking reelection on the Federalist ticket. Because the Constitution did not distinguish between president and vice president in the votes cast by each state’s electors in the Electoral College, both Jefferson and his running mate Burr received 73 votes.

According to Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, if two candidates each received a majority of the electoral votes but are tied, the House of Representatives would determine which one would be president. As a result, the Federalist-controlled House of Representatives would select the president. This quirk in the Electoral College was later remedied by the 12th Amendment.

Although Hamilton, a Federalist, was no friend of Jefferson he wrote a letter to the House of Representatives zealously urging fellow Federalists to choose Jefferson over Burr.

Hamilton wrote “a man without theory cannot be a systematic or able statesman.” Burr is “more cunning than wise ... inferior in real ability to Jefferson.” Hamilton continued, “Great Ambition unchecked by principle ... is an unruly Tyrant.”

Jefferson became president and Burr vice president. In 1804, Burr killed Hamilton in a duel, but Burr’s story doesn’t end there.

Little more than three years later, in the summer of 1807, Burr was accused of treason, one of the gravest crimes in American law - punishable by death. How did a man who only a few years earlier was vice president end up on trial for treason?

Burr was disgraced by killing Hamilton and dropped from Jefferson’s reelection ticket. Burr then sought to raise a small army on the American frontier. It was alleged he planned to lead an independent campaign against Spanish-held territories in Texas and Mexico, but it was also possible that he planned to wrest a portion of the newly-acquired frontier from the United States. According to associates, Burr had sought to form a new western nation with himself as emperor.

Although it wasn’t entirely clear what Burr had been up to between 1804 and 1807, President Jefferson demanded that he be charged with treason. Burr fled toward what is now Florida. He was arrested in early 1807 in Wakefield, a town in Mississippi Territory. He was confined to a military fort and brought to Richmond, Virginia, for trial. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall presided over a trial that took prosecutors several months to present.

Burr’s lawyers presented a zealous defense. They argued that the definition of treason, outlined in the Constitution, required evidence of an “overt act” not just a plan or conspiracy. Chief Justice Marshall said that to prove treason, “war must actually be levied against the United States ... conspiracy is not treason.”

When Marshall ruled in favor of Burr’s interpretation of the law, the prosecution’s case unraveled, and the jury found Burr not guilty.

For several years after the trial, Burr lived in self-imposed exile in Europe. He returned to New York and resumed his law practice. He remarried late in life. His new wife was a wealthy widow who filed for divorce after only four months of marriage. She hired Alexander Hamilton Jr. to prosecute the divorce. Hamilton finalized the divorce on Sept. 14, 1836, the day Burr died.

It is a good thing Hamilton, Burr and Jefferson have become subjects of everyday conversation in the last half-decade - even if it’s because of a Broadway musical. It would be even better if their names were bantered about in 2020 because of independence, government, personal rights and presidential politics.

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GOP resorts to racist 'dog whistle' in crime based political ads

Taping into the the playbooks of Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, GOP resorts to racist 'dog whistle' in crime based political ads. Apocalyptic images of blazing buildings and window-smashing protesters pop on the TV screen as a caller to a 911 emergency line reaches voicemail. The computer offers to take reports of rapes, murders or home invasions, adding, “Our estimated wait time is five days.”

The 30-second ad by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign ends with “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America” emblazoned across a flickering hellscape. It blames a push by progressive activists to defund the police as “violent crime has exploded,reported The Associated Press. 

With recent shootings that have killed children and dozens of others in cities with large Black populations like New York, Atlanta and Chicago, the GOP is trying to play offense, ominously. Ads like Trump’s and other Republican messaging insinuate that the rare looting and violence that marred largely peaceful social justice protests are spreading and foretell a wave of mayhem that they claim Democrats would abet with anti-police policies.

Trump emphasized that menacing theme at the White House Thursday, calling proponents of defunding the police “crazy.” Telling a visiting group of Hispanic Americans that many immigrants had fled dangerous countries, Trump added, “They know what happens when the police cannot protect the innocent, when the rule of law is destroyed.”

Democrats call the GOP drive an obvious diversion from issues they say voters care most about: the coronavirus pandemic that Trump has failed to control, the economic shutdown, recession-level unemployment, racial justice and health care.

They say Biden, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, has a well-honed moderate record that makes Republican efforts to cast him as a radical fruitless. And they say the GOP is fanning the flames of racism, preying on white suburbanites worried that televised scenes of burning buildings mean their neighborhoods are next.

“It’s not even subtle. We’re well beyond dog whistle,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic consultant.

The GOP spearhead comes with polls showing that Trump’s reelection and Republican control of the Senate may be in jeopardy in November’s voting. It also follows weeks of protests following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and during a period that’s seen Trump call the phrase “Black Lives Matter” a “symbol of hate,” defend Confederate commanders and retweet a supporter yelling, ”White power!”

Biden supports overhauling police practices and budgets but has repeatedly disavowed calls for defunding the police, as have most congressional Democrats. Republicans often suggest the term means that proponents want to abolish entire departments — and some far-left Democrats do — but most in the party consider it a call to shift some police resources to social welfare and other agencies.

Biden aides say it’s a fantasy to cast the former vice president as seeking to dismantle police departments or ready to heed those who would. “Donald Trump is a chronic liar” who is “desperate to run against a fictitious opponent instead of Joe Biden,” said Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates.

Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh called it “ridiculous” for Democrats to say the GOP tactic is racist.

“All Americans, no matter who they are or where they live, should be concerned about the anarchists and lawless mobs roaming the streets with the tacit approval of Joe Biden and the Democrats,” Murtaugh said.

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Texas executes first inmate since the onset of pandemic

The 7th Execution of 2020

The state of Texas executed Billy Joe Wardlow on July 8, 2020 for a 1993 East Texas robbery and murder. It was the state's first execution since the coronavirus swept through the state, reported the Texas Tribune.

In late appeals, Wardlow's lawyers argued that his death should be stopped because of the dangers presented by the rising pandemic and his young age at the the time of the crime. Neuroscientists and a group of Texas lawmakers also raised concerns with sentencing people who had committed crimes under 21 to death because of brain immaturity. All of Wardlow's appeals were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court just after 6 p.m., the scheduled time of execution.

Sitting in a holding cell, Wardlow was then taken into the Texas death chamber at a Huntsville prison, placed on a gurney and connected to an IV. His fiancee, lead attorney and two other friends stood nearby in another room, according a prison witness list. A friend of the murder victim was also present.

At 6:28 p.m, Wardlow was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital. He was pronounced dead 24 minutes later.

During Texas executions, witnesses for the inmate and the murder victim regularly stand closely together with prison officials, chaplains and reporters in separate but adjacent rooms. Because of the coronavirus — including active cases of infected inmates and employees at the prison housing the death chamber, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson said Tuesday that all witnesses would have their temperatures checked, be required to wear masks and stay 6 feet apart. He did not say how that would be possible, citing security concerns. Twenty-six people were named on the witness list.

Wardlow, who declined to give a final statement in the death chamber, sent a letter last month to the parole board and spoke of how he changed during his quarter of a century on death row.

“I came to death row a scared boy who made poor choices; I will leave death row a man that others admire because I weathered the storms of life with the help of people that loved me,” Wardlow wrote the board. “We should all be so fortunate.”

Wardlow was 18 when he killed 82-year-old Carl Cole in Cason. Wardlow shot Cole during an attempted robbery in which he said he had planned to steal Cole’s truck to leave the rural town and start a new life with his girlfriend.

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Prosecutors argued Wardlow intentionally killed Cole, shooting him between the eyes. Wardlow said he hadn’t planned to fire the weapon and shot Cole during an unexpected struggle. After the killing, Wardlow and his girlfriend fled and were later arrested in South Dakota.

After 25 years on death row, Wardlow, aided by neuroscientists, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that at 18, he was too young to face Texas’ death penalty. Nearly 60 Texas lawmakers also informed the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which could recommend a delay to the execution, that they plan to take up the issue of age and the death penalty in the 2021 Legislature. But on Monday, the board voted against halting the execution until then.

The parole board also received letters from two jurors at his trial who said they now believe Wardlow should have gotten a life sentence based on new research.

“I have since that time … come to the conclusion that because of Mr. Wardlow’s youthful age at the time this crime was committed, we could not have predicted how he would turn out when he grew into adulthood,” Bob Seale wrote in a letter to the board after Wardlow’s legal team reached out to him.

Since 2005, the Supreme Court has held that death sentences are unconstitutional for those 17 or younger at the time of the crime because of their vulnerability, comparative lack of control and still-undefined identity. Some state and lower federal courts have questioned in recent years whether the upper limit of 18 is too young as new science emerges that shows the brains of people ages 18 to 20 are “functionally indistinguishable” from those of 17-year-olds in terms of moral culpability, according to Wardlow’s brief.

In a plea to stop his execution and invalidate his death sentence, Wardlow asked the high court to rule that the death penalty is unconstitutional for those under 21 — but just in Texas. That’s because a Texas death sentence requires a jury to unanimously agree that a person convicted of capital murder would likely be a future danger to society — a decision Wardlow’s attorney and a group of brain researchers said is impossible to make for an 18-year-old.

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