U.S. appeals to proceed with federal execution

Determined to proceed with the first federal execution in nearly two decades, the Justice Department plans to appeal a judge’s ruling that would halt authorities from carrying it out on Monday.

The family of the victims in the case had requested that it be called off because their fear of the coronavirus would keep them from attending. Not that they wanted to see the killer die; they have long asked that he be given a life sentence instead, and their pandemic objection could postpone the execution indefinitely.

Daniel Lee, 47, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on Monday. Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, was convicted in Arkansas of the 1996 killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell.

But Chief District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ruled Friday that the execution would be put on hold because the family’s concern about the pandemic, which has killed more than 130,000 people and is ravaging prisons nationwide.