Judge halts federal execution, citing coronavirus concerns

A judge halted the first federal execution set to take place in nearly 20 years over concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic. 

Chief District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson of the Southern District of Indiana Friday stayed the execution of Daniel Lee. Lee, 47, had been sentenced to death for the 1996 murders of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell. 

Magnus-Stinson said she was putting the execution on hold over concerns from the victims’ family members over the coronavirus, which has spread like wildfire throughout prisons across the country.

The judge cited Earlene Branch Peterson in her ruling; Peterson, whose daughter and granddaughter were killed by Lee, said she wants to be present for the execution.

“The harm to Ms. Peterson, for example, is being forced to choose whether being present for the execution of a man responsible for the death of her daughter and granddaughter is worth defying her doctor’s orders and risking her own life,” Magnus-Stinson wrote.

The execution was to be the first one in almost two decades after the Justice Department announced it was resuming capital punishment. Magnus-Stinson’s stay will delay the punishment until such time as there is no longer a national health emergency.

The stay applies only to Lee’s execution and not to two others scheduled for next week. 

“The family is hopeful that the federal government will support them by not appealing today’s ruling, a reversal of which would put them back in the untenable position of choosing between attending the execution at great risk to their health and safety, or forgoing this event they have long wanted to be present for,” Baker Kurrus, an attorney for the victims’ family, told The Associated Press.

However, the Justice Department already filed its notice with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stating its intent to appeal the stay, writing in a court filing that preparations for the execution “cannot easily be undone.”