Judge defies Trump to halt first federal execution for 17 years

THE first federal execution due to take place in the US in 17 years was dramatically halted at the last minute yesterday, in a setback for the Trump administration’s goal of reviving capital punishment.

Daniel Lewis Lee, who is serving a sentence for three murders committed in 1996, was set to die by lethal injection at a federal prison complex in Indiana yesterday afternoon. However, a judge in Washington DC ordered an 11th-hour stay, ruling that it likely violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Tanya Chutkan, a district judge, said that there was evidence showing that the drug the Department of Justice intended to use to carry out executions “produces sensations of drowning and asphyxiation” and causes “extreme pain, terror and panic”.

Judge Chutkan ordered a preliminary injunction against the government while the courts heard a challenge from two other death row inmates scheduled for execution this week.

She chastised the Trump administration for quickly moving to set execution dates while the court case was playing out.

“The public is not served by shortcircuiting legitimate judicial process, and is greatly served by attempting to ensure that the most serious punishment is imposed in a manner consistent with our constitution,” she said in the ruling.

The Department of Justice immediately appealed to a higher court yesterday, asking that the executions move forward. The Supreme Court may eventually have the final say.

The scheduled execution of Lee, the first of a federal death row inmate since 2003, was to be carried out after an appeals court lifted an earlier injunction put in place last week, when the victims’ family argued they would be put at high risk of catching the coronavirus if they had to travel to attend the execution and pushed for the date to be delayed.

Critics argue that the government is creating an unnecessary and manufactured urgency around a topic that is not high on the list of American concerns right now. William Barr, the US attorney general, said he believed the Bureau of Prisons could “carry out these executions without being at risk”.