The United States executes the first black man since the resumption of the federal death penalty

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The US government on Thursday executed convicted murderer Christopher Vialva, the first black man to suffer the federal death penalty since punishment resumed this summer after a 17-year hiatus.

Vialva was 19 years old when he and other gang members in Killeen, Texas, murdered Todd and Stacie Bagley, Iowa white married Christian youth ministers, at the Fort Hood military base in 1999. He was pronounced dead at 12:30. 6:46 p.m. (11:46 p.m. Irish time) after officials from the U.S. Department of Justice injected him with pentobarbital, a barbiturate, in the execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana, according to the reporter acting as media witness.

It was the sixth federal execution this year and the second this week, after the administration of US President Donald Trump resumed the practice. Under Trump, the Justice Department has executed twice as many men this year as all of Trump’s predecessors combined since 1963. The last time the United States government executed six or more people in a single year was in 1942, according to the Death penalty. Information Center (DPIC) in Washington. The 40-year-old Vialva’s execution comes as the nation grapples with racial disparities in the criminal justice system, with daily protests in American cities against police brutality against blacks.

Of the 56 people on federal death row, 26, or 46%, are black, and 22, or 39%, are white, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a non-profit organization. Washington-based profit organization. Blacks make up only 13% of the American population. DPIC released a report this month in which it concluded that racial prejudice persists in the US capital punishment system. The report said that murderers of whites were more likely to face the death penalty than murderers of blacks, and a study in North Carolina found that qualified black jurors were eliminated from juries at more than double the rate of juries qualified targets.

At Vialva’s trial in the United States District Court for West Texas in 2000, a jury of 11 white people and one black person found him and a black accomplice, Brandon Bernard, guilty of carjacking and murder. , and voted for them to receive the death penalty. A date for Bernard’s execution has not been set.

The American Civil Liberties Union has said teenager Vialva was unfairly tried as an adult and distributed a video of Vialva this month speaking from prison about racial disparities. “The death penalty has been used disproportionately against blacks for decades,” Vialva says in the video. “People don’t know that many of us here were arrested before we were old enough to drink.”

According to court records, Vialva and her accomplices were looking for someone to rob when they found Todd Begley using a pay phone at a convenience store, and she agreed to take them in her car. In the back seat, Vialva pulled out a pistol and ordered Begley and his wife to get into the trunk of the car. After forcing Begley to reveal his PIN, Vialva withdrew cash from Begley’s account at an ATM, even though there was less than $ 100 on deposit. He used the cash to buy fast food and cigarettes, among other items. During the several hours they spent in the trunk, the Begleys could be heard telling their kidnappers to embrace Christianity. Finally, Vialva parked the car in an isolated part of Fort Hood, opened the trunk, and shot both Begleys in the head, killing Todd and knocking Stacie unconscious. Bernard then set the car on fire and an autopsy showed that she died from smoke inhalation.



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