US carries out first federal execution in 17 years

WASHINGTON – Hours after the Supreme Court rejected a last-minute legal-challenge on a 5-4 vote, the Justice Department put a 47-year-old man to death for his role in the 1996 murder of a family of three, the first federal execution in more than 17 years.

But up until the final hours before Lee’s death, the government had to fight off legal challenges both to the single-drug technique and to complications of carrying out the death penalty in the midst of a pandemic. The Supreme Court’s unsigned 5-4 ruling early Tuesday morning said pentobarbital has been used in over 100 executions “without incident” and had been upheld by the Supreme Court and appeals courts.

In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, repeated their long-standing doubts about the constitutionality of the death penalty.

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