The U.S. Justice Department announced on Thursday it was reinstating a two-decades long dormant policy to resume the federal government’s use of capital punishment and immediately scheduled the executions for five death row federal inmates.
“Congress has expressly authorised the death penalty through legislation adopted by the peoples representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President,” Attorney General William Barr said in a statement.
“The Justice Department upholds the rule of law and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has called for increasing use of the death penalty for drug traffickers and mass shooters. The Justice Department said it has scheduled executions for five federal inmates who have been convicted of horrific murders and sex crimes.
Those inmates include Daniel Lewis Lee, a white supremacist who was convicted in Arkansas for murdering a family of three, including an eight-year-old girl. Another one is Lezmond Mitchell, who was found guilty by a jury in Arizona of stabbing a 63-year-old grandmother and forcing her young granddaughter to sit next to her lifeless body on a car journey before slitting the girl’s throat.
“Each of these inmates has exhausted their appellate and post-conviction remedies,” the department said, adding that the executions will take place in Indiana.
