'Unnecessary and avoidable': Religious leaders speak out against federal resumption of executions

The Supreme Court’s Tuesday decision to allow the Trump administration to carry out the first federal execution since 2003 exposed splintered support for the president from religious conservatives on the issue.

The execution, performed hours after a 5-4 Supreme Court decision gave the Justice Department the green light, was performed on Daniel Lewis Lee, who was sentenced to death in 1999 for robbing a family at gunpoint and then drowning them in an Illinois bayou. Before the procedure took place on Tuesday morning, Lee insisted that he was innocent.