印第安纳州TERRE HAUTE-联邦政府周二执行了近20年来的首次死刑，以注射致死的方式杀害了一名男子，该男子被判在20世纪90年代在太平洋西北地区谋杀了一个阿肯色州家庭，企图建立一个只允许白人居住的国家。
丹尼尔·刘易斯·李的处决遭到了受害者亲属的反对，随后几天的法律拖延，重新引发了关于死刑在社会动荡时期。特朗普政府继续执行死刑的决心，为2020年总统选举前夕关于刑事司法改革的全国对话增添了新的篇章。
就在他死在印第安纳州特雷霍特的联邦监狱之前，李声称自己是无辜的。
“我一生中犯了很多错误，但我不是杀人犯。”俄克拉荷马州育空的47岁的李说。“你在杀害一个无辜的人。”
政府计划本周再处决两名男子，包括周三因1998年杀害堪萨斯城一名青少年而被处决的韦斯利·伊拉·珀基。但是法律专家说，68岁的普吉患有痴呆症，由于他的精神状态，他有更大的机会避免这种命运。
监狱管理局决定继续执行死刑——这是自2003年以来的第一次——引起了民权组织和广大公众的关注。李氏受害者的亲属提起诉讼，试图阻止这一事件，理由是对冠状病毒大流行的担忧。冠状病毒大流行已在美国造成13.5万多人死亡，并正在肆虐全国各地的监狱。
批评者认为，政府正在制造一种人为的政治利益紧迫感。李的一位律师露丝·弗里德曼说，“政府最终仓促执行死刑，这是非常可耻的。”
但是司法部长威廉·巴尔说，“李最终面对了他应得的正义。美国人民作出了深思熟虑的选择，允许对最恶劣的联邦罪行判处死刑。今天，在执行对李的可怕罪行的判决时，正义得到了伸张。”
巴尔早些时候曾表示，司法部有责任执行判决，部分原因是为了向受害者家属和发生杀戮的社区中的其他人提供了结。
然而，1996年被李开复杀害的人的亲属认为，他应该被判终身监禁，而不是死刑。他们想在场反驳任何关于死刑是代表他们执行的争论，但表示对冠状病毒的担忧让他们远离了。
李开复的律师尝试了多次上诉以停止执行死刑，但最终最高法院在周二早些时候以5比4的比分裁定可以继续执行。他于美国东部时间早上8:07去世。
威提姆斯的亲属指出，李开复的共同被告和臭名昭著的头目切维·凯霍被判无期徒刑。
华盛顿科尔维尔的凯霍在1995年招募李加入他的白人至上主义组织——雅利安人民共和国。两年后，他们因杀害枪支经销商威廉·穆勒、他的妻子南希和她8岁的女儿莎拉·鲍威尔而被捕，地点在阿肯色州的蒂莉，距离小石城西北约75英里(120公里)。
在1999年的一次审判中，检察官说凯霍和李从米勒一家那里偷了枪支和5万美元现金，作为他们建立一个白人国家计划的一部分。
检察官说李和凯霍使米勒一家失去了能力，并询问莎拉他们在哪里可以找到钱和弹药。然后，他们对受害者使用眩晕枪，用胶带封住他们头上的垃圾袋使他们窒息，用胶带把石头粘在他们身上，然后把他们扔在附近的海湾。
美国地方法院的一名法官周一暂停了对李开复的处决，原因是死囚对处决方式的担忧，上诉法院维持原判，但高等法院推翻了原判。
周二早上，李的左手手指上有一个脉搏血氧仪，用来监测他的氧气水平，他的手臂上有纹身，戴着黑色的约束装置，静脉注射管穿过墙上的一块金属板。
在注射药物和移动腿和脚之前，他呼吸沉重。在给药的时候，他抬起头环顾四周。过了一会儿，他的胸部不再动了。
李与两名监狱局官员、一名美国执法官和他的精神顾问在行刑室，一名监狱发言人称他为“阿巴拉契亚异教徒牧师。”他们和李没有戴口罩。
监狱的一名高级官员宣布了李的死亡时间，帷幕关闭了。
根据死刑信息中心的数据，自3月中旬大流行迫使全国范围内关闭以来，美国已经有两个州执行了死刑——一个在德克萨斯州，一个在密苏里州。阿拉巴马州在三月初有一个。
联邦一级的处决很少，自1988年恢复联邦死刑以来，政府只处死了三名被告——最近一次是在2003年，当时路易斯·琼斯因1995年绑架、强奸和谋杀一名年轻女兵而被处决。
此后，司法部继续批准死刑起诉，联邦法院判处被告死刑。
2014年，在俄克拉何马州一次拙劣的处决后，巴拉克·奥巴马总统指示司法部对死刑和注射毒品相关问题进行一次广泛的审查。
司法部长说，去年7月审查已经完成，允许继续执行死刑。他批准了一种新的致命注射程序，用一种药物——戊巴比妥代替了以前在联邦处决中使用的三种药物的组合。这类似于几个州使用的程序，包括乔治亚州、密苏里州和德克萨斯州。
根据死刑信息中心汇编的数据，自2003年联邦执行死刑以来，州执行死刑的数量稳步下降。2004年各州处死了59人，2019年处死了22人。
First federal execution in 17 years; another set Wednesday
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- The federal government on Tuesday carried out its first execution in almost two decades, killing by lethal injection a man convicted of murdering an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.
The execution of Daniel Lewis Lee came over the objection of the victims’ relatives and following days of legal delays, reviving the debate overcapital punishmentduring a time of widespread social unrest. And the Trump administration's determination to proceed with executions added a new chapter to the national conversation about criminal justice reform in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.
Just before he died at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, Lee, professed his innocence.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I’m not a murderer.” said Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma. “You’re killing an innocent man.”
The government is scheduled to execute two more men this week, including Wesley Ira Purkey on Wednesday for the killing of a Kansas City teenager in 1998. But legal experts say the 68-year-old Purkey, who suffers from dementia, has a greater chance of avoiding that fate because of his mental state.
The decision by the Bureau of Prisons to move forward with executions — the first since 2003 — has drawn scrutiny from civil rights groups and the wider public. Relatives of Lee’s victims sued to try to halt it, citing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 135,000 people in the United States and is ravaging prisons nationwide.
Critics argued the government was creating a manufactured urgency for political gain. One of Lee’s lawyers, Ruth Friedman, said it was “beyond shameful that the government, in the end, carried out this execution in haste."
But Attorney General William Barr said, “Lee finally faced the justice he deserved. 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.”
Barr had said earlier that the Justice Department had a duty to carry out the sentences, partly to provide closure to the victims' families and others in the communities where the killings happened.
However, relatives of those killed by Lee in 1996 argued he deserved life in prison rather than execution. They wanted to be present to counter any contention the execution was being done on their behalf but said concern about the coronavirus kept them away.
Lee’s lawyers tried multiple appeals to halt the execution, but ultimately the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 early Tuesday that it could move forward. He died at 8:07 a.m. EDT.
The vitims' relatives noted 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 organization, 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, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock.
At a 1999 trial, prosecutors said Kehoe and Lee stole guns and $50,000 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.
A U.S. District Court judge had 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.
On Tuesday morning, Lee had a pulse oximeter on a finger of his left hand, to monitor his oxygen level, and his arms, which had tattoos, were in black restraints, IV tubes coming through a metal panel in the wall.
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 Bureau of Prisons officials, a U.S. marshal and his spiritual adviser, described by a prisons spokesperson as an “Appalachian pagan minister.” They and Lee didn’t wear masks.
One of the senior prison officials announced Lee’s time of death, and the curtain closed.
There have been two state executions in the U.S. since the pandemic forced shutdowns nationwide in mid-March — one in Texas and one in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Alabama had one in early March.
Executions on the federal level have been rare, and the government has put to death only three defendants since restoring the federal death penalty in 1988 — most recently in 2003, when Louis Jones was executed for the 1995 kidnapping, rape and murder of a young female soldier.
Since then, the Justice Department has continued to approve death penalty prosecutions and federal courts have sentenced defendants to death.
In 2014, following a botched state execution in Oklahoma, President Barack Obama directed the Justice Department to conduct a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection drugs.
The attorney general said last July the review had been completed, allowing executions to resume. He approved a new procedure for lethal injections that replaces the three-drug combination previously used in federal executions with one drug, pentobarbital. This is similar to the procedure used in several states, including Georgia, Missouri and Texas.
State executions have fallen steadily since the 2003 federal execution, according to data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. States put to death 59 people in 2004 and 22 in 2019.
