Daniel Lewis Lee is scheduled to be the first federal prisoner executed in 17 years on Monday, but this afternoon a federal judge put a temporary halt to it due to COVID-19 infection fears.
The judge is not concerned that Lee might get infected. Rather, the scheduling of his execution is being challenged by relatives of his victims. They have sued the Department of Justice to temporarily halt the execution because, while they are permitted to attend Lee’s execution, they are concerned that they risk coronavirus infection by traveling across the country from where they live to Terre Haute, Indiana, where Lee is incarcerated and will be executed. They argue the federal government cannot guarantee they will not be exposed to COVID-19.
Lee was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering a family of three in 1999—William Mueller, Nancy Mueller, and their 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Mueller—and dumping them in an Arkansas bayou. He has been sitting on death row for years because the federal government stopped executing prisoners back in 2003. Attorney General William Barr announced last year that he was restarting federal executions. Lee is scheduled to be the first.
But members of the victims’ family actually oppose Lee’s execution and want to see him remain in prison instead. The man who allegedly masterminded this crime, Chevie Kehoe, was sentenced to life in prison, and they believe Lee should get the same punishment.
An attempt to get the Supreme Court to intervene in these upcoming planned executions recently failed. But the relatives had another claim they were pushing. Under the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994, when the federal government executes a prisoner, they must follow the statutory guidelines of the state where the inmate was sentenced to death. And Arkansas law requires that direct relatives of the victims “shall be present” at the execution if they wish to attend, unless the state can prove any of those relatives are a security risk.
Three relatives of the victims—Earlene Peterson (Nancy’s mother and Sarah’s grandmother), Kimma Gurel (Nancy’s sister), and Monica Veillete (Nancy’s niece) say they fall under this category, and therefore they must be allowed to attend. But they also say it’s dangerous to do so because of the potential COVID-19 infection dangers (Peterson is 81 and has congestive heart failure, putting her in a higher risk category). They asked a federal judge to delay Lee’s execution.
This afternoon, Chief Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana agreed. She writes, “In this case, the public’s interest in a prompt, orderly execution should give way to their interest in treating Ms. Peterson, Ms. Gurel, and Ms. Veillette with fairness, respect, and dignity.” She enjoined the Department of Justice from carrying out Lee’s execution Monday and will keep the injunction in place until the government can show that they can execute Lee while still allowing the family to attend safely.
Assuming this injunction holds through Monday, Wesley Ira Purkey is the next federal prisoner set for execution on Wednesday. Purkey’s spiritual advisor, a Buddhist priest, is suing for a similar delay because he, too, claims that he is at risk of COVID-19 infection should he attempt to visit Purkey.
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Here’s the essay response from Benjamin Rush on the death penalty… he was against it, however, others were for it…
Benjamin Rush on the Death Penalty
In an essay upon the effects of public punishments upon criminals and upon society, published in the second volume of the American Museum, I hinted, in a short paragraph, at the injustice of punishing murder by death. I shall attempt in the following essay, to support that opinion, and to answer all the objections that have been urged against it.
I. Every man possesses an absolute power over his own liberty and property, but not over his own life. When he becomes a member of political society, he commits the disposal of his liberty and property to his fellow citizens; but as he has no right to dispose of his life, he cannot commit the power over it to any body of men. To take away life, therefore, for any crime, is a violation of the first political compact.
II. The punishment of murder by death, is contrary to reason, and to the order and happiness of society.
1. It lessens the horror of taking away human life, and thereby tends to multiply murders.
2. It produces murder, by its influence upon people who are tired of life, and who, from a supposition, that murder is a less crime than suicide, destroy a life (and often that of a near connexion) and afterwards deliver themselves up to justice, that they may escape from their misery by means of a halter.
3. The punishment of murder by death, multiplies murders, from the difficulty it creates of convicting persons who are guilty of it. Humanity, revolting at the idea of the severity and certainty of a capital punishment, often steps in, and collects such evidence in favour of a murderer, as screens him from justice altogether, or palliates his crime into manslaughter. If the punishment of murder consisted in long confinement, and hard labor, it would be proportioned by the measure of our feelings of justice, and every member of society would be a watchman or a magistrate, to apprehend a destroyer of human life, and to bring him to punishment.
4. The punishment of murder by death, checks the operations of universal justice, by preventing the punishment of every species of murder. Quack doctors–frauds of various kinds–and a licentious press, often destroy life, and sometimes with malice of the most propense nature. If murder were punished by confinement and hard labour, the authors of the numerous murders that have been mentioned, would be dragged forth, and punished according to their deserts. How much order and happiness would arise to society from such a change in human affairs! But who will attempt to define these species of murder, or to prosecute offenders of this stamp, if death is to be the punishment of the crime after it is admitted, and proved to be wilful murder?–only alter the punishment of murder, and these crimes will soon assume their proper names, and probably soon become as rare as murder from common acts of violence.
5. The punishment of murder by death, has been proved to be contrary to the order and happiness of society by the experiments of some of the wisest legislators in Europe. The Empress of Russia, the King of Sweden, and the Duke of Tuscany, have nearly extirpated murder from their dominions, by converting its punishment into the means of benefiting society, and reforming the criminals who perpetrate it.
III. The punishment of murder by death, is contrary to divine revelation. A religion which commands us to forgive and even to do good to our enemies, can never authorise the punishment of murder by death. “Vengeance is mine,” said the Lord; “I will repay.” It is to no purpose to say here, that this vengeance is taken out of the hands of an individual, and directed against the criminal by the hand of government. It is equally an usurpation of the prerogative of heaven, whether it be inflicted by a single person, or by a whole community.
I cannot take leave of this subject without remarking that capital punishments are the natural offspring of monarchical governments. Kings believe that they possess their crowns by a divine right: no wonder, therefore, they assume the divine power of taking away human life. Kings consider their subjects as their property: no wonder, therefore, they shed their blood with as little emotion as men shed the blood of their sheep or cattle. But the principles of republican governments speak a very different language. They teach us the absurdity of the divine origin of kingly power. They approximate the extreme ranks of men to each other. They restore man to his God–to society–and to himself. They revive and establish the relations of fellow-citizen, friend, and brother. They appreciate human life, and increase public and private obligations to preserve it. They consider human sacrifices as no less offensive to the sovereignty of the people, than they are to the majesty of heaven. They view the attributes of government, like the attributes of the Deity, as infinitely more honoured by destroying evil by means of merciful than by exterminating punishments. The United States have adopted these peaceful and benevolent forms of government. It becomes them therefore to adopt their mild and benevolent principles. An execution in a republic is like a human sacrifice in religion. It is an offering to monarchy, and to that malignant being, who has been styled a murderer from the beginning, and who delights equally in murder, whether it be perpetrated by the cold, but vindictive arm of the law, or by the angry hand of private revenge.