The Supreme Court ruled that the federal death penalty can proceed, paving the way for convicted murderer Daniel Lewis Lee to be put to death in what is slated to be the first federal execution in 17 years.
The high court ruled in favor of the Justice Department on Tuesday one day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined its request to stay a preliminary injunction granted by a district court hours before the execution was expected to take place.
An unsigned order released after 2 a.m. EDT showed the vote was 5-4.
The Supreme Court, in its ruling, said Lee and the other three death row inmates who sued to stop their executions “have not established that they are likely to succeed” in their challenge, which focused on challenges to the federal government’s lethal injection protocol.
The court ruled that the drug protocol proposed by the government “has become a ‘mainstay’ of state executions.”
Lee, 47, was a member of a white supremacist group who murdered a family of three, including an 8-year-old girl, according to the Justice Department. He robbed and shot the family, covered and sealed their heads with plastic bags, weighed them down with rocks, and threw them into a bayou. He was convicted by a jury more than 20 years ago.
Attorney General William Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons in June to schedule the executions of four federal death row inmates convicted of murdering children. Barr announced new guidelines last summer for resuming capital punishment under federal law following a hiatus dating back to 2003.
Wesley Ira Purkey, Dustin Lee Honken, and Keith Dwayne Nelson are the other convicted murderers who are scheduled for executions later in July and August.
