The European Union issued a statement condemning the United States for its plans to resume executing some federal death row inmates next week.
“The European Union strongly opposes the decision of the United States Department of Justice to resume the federal death penalty after a 17-year hiatus,” the EU spokesperson said in a Friday statement. “We urge the U.S. administration to reconsider and not proceed with the federal executions due to take place starting on 13 July.”
“This decision runs counter to the overall trend in the United States and worldwide to abolish the death penalty, either by law or in practice,” the statement continued, adding that the EU sees the death penalty as a “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment” and opposes it “at all times in all circumstances.”
Attorney General William Barr this week ordered the Bureau of Prisons to move forward with the executions of three convicted murderers despite the ongoing threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
“The American people, acting through Congress and presidents of both political parties, have long instructed that defendants convicted of the most heinous crimes should be subject to a sentence of death,” Barr said about resuming the executions.
Last month, Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions of four inmates convicted of killing children. The four inmates are Daniel Lee, Wesley Purkey, Dustin Honken, and Keith Nelson. The executions will be carried out at the federal death chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Lee, the first inmate set to die, is a 48-year-old white supremacist who was convicted in 1999 of robbing a family of three before killing them. Among those murdered was an 8-year-old girl.
Earlene Peterson, whose daughter and granddaughter were killed by Lee, said that despite knowing he is guilty, she doesn’t want the government to move forward with the execution. Peterson sent a video to President Trump, whom she said she supports, asking him to commute the sentence to life in prison.
“We were hopeful that they had heard us and maybe listened to us, but that’s not what they have done,” Peterson told the Wall Street Journal. “Putting Daniel Lee to death would dishonor my whole family. That’s not how we live our lives.”
The planned executions are almost a year in the making, with Barr announcing the resumption of the program last July. If carried out they will be the first federal executions since 2003.
