Trump administration claims 10th inmate sentenced to death since July

The Trump administration continued its unprecedented series of post-election federal executions on Friday (Saturday NZT) by killing a Louisiana trucker who severely abused his 2-year-old daughter for weeks in 2002, then killed her by slamming her head against a truck. . Windows and dashboard of the truck.

Alfred Bourgeois, 56, was pronounced dead at 8:21 p.m. ET after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

His lawyers argued that Bourgeois had an IQ that placed him in the category of intellectually disabled, and said that should have made him ineligible for the death penalty under federal law. Victor J. Abreu said it was “shameful” to execute his client “without fair consideration of his intellectual disability.”

In his last words, Bourgeois was unapologetic and instead adopted a deeply defiant tone, insisting that he did not kill or sexually abuse his baby.

“I ask God to forgive everyone who conspired and conspired against me, and placed false evidence.”

And he added: “I did not commit this crime.”

Bourgeois was the 10th federal inmate to be sentenced to death since federal executions resumed under President Donald Trump in July after a 17-year hiatus. He was the second federal prisoner to be executed this week, and three more executions were planned for January.

When the lethal injection of pentobarbital began to flow through the IVs in both arms, Bourgeois tilted his head to the side to look at his spiritual advisor standing in the corner of the death chamber holding a small Bible. Bourgeois gave him a thumbs-up and his spiritual advisor raised his thumb in response.

Seconds later, Bourgeois looked up at the glass that separated him from the media and other witnesses in adjoining rooms, and then seemed to grimace and frown. He began to exhale rhythmically for a minute and then his stomach began to shake uncontrollably. After about five minutes, the movement of his stomach stopped and his entire body went completely still. He did not move for about 20 minutes before he was pronounced dead.

Bourgeois had met with his spiritual adviser early Friday while trying to come to terms with the possibility of dying, and he was also praying, another of his attorneys, Shawn Nolan, told The Associated Press just hours before the execution. He said Bourgeois had been “praying for redemption.” Bourgeois devoted himself to drawing in prison, including interpreting by members of his legal team.

Nolan said he has not been a riot on death row and has a good disciplinary record. The last time the number of civilians executed at the federal level was in double digits in a year was under President Grover Cleveland, with 14 in 1896.

The string of executions under Trump since Election Day, the first in late November, is also the first time in more than 130 years that federal executions have occurred during a trashy period. Cleveland was also the last president to do that.

Bourgeois’s lawyers argued that the apparent rush by Trump, a Republican, to carry out the executions ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of the enemy of the death penalty, Joe Biden, a Democrat, deprived their client of his right. to exhaust your legal options.

The Justice Department gave Bourgeois just 21 days’ notice that he was to be executed under protocols that reduced the required notice period from 90 days, Nolan said.

“It is remarkable. Speeding up these executions during the pandemic and everything in between makes absolutely no sense,” he said.

Several appeals courts have found that neither the evidence nor criminal law on intellectual disabilities supports the claims of Bourgeois’ legal team.

On Thursday, Brandon Bernard was executed for his role in the 1999 murder of an Iowa religious couple after he and other teen gang members kidnapped and robbed Todd and Stacie Bagley in Texas. Bernard, who was 18 at the time of the murders, was a rare execution of a person who was in his late teens when his crime was committed.

Several high-profile figures, including reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, called on Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison, citing, among other things, Bernard’s youth at the time and the remorse he has expressed for years. .

In Bourgeois’s case, the crimes stand out as particularly brutal because they involved his young daughter.

According to court documents, he obtained temporary custody of the child, who is referred to in court documents only as “JG,” following a 2002 paternity lawsuit from a Texas woman. Bourgeois lived in Louisiana with his wife and two children.

Over the next month, Bourgeois whipped the girl with an electrical cord, burned her feet with a cigarette lighter, and hit her on the head with a plastic baseball bat so hard that her head swelled; He then refused to seek medical treatment for her, court documents. say.

Prosecutors also said he sexually abused her. Her potty training allegedly enraged Bourgeois and sometimes forced her to sleep in a training bath. It was during a truck trip to Corpus Christi, Texas, that he ended up killing the boy.

Again angered by her potty training, he grabbed her by the shoulders inside the truck and slammed her head against the windows and dash four times, court documents say. When the girl lost consciousness, Bourgeois’s wife pleaded with him to seek help and he told her to tell rescuers that she had been injured falling from the truck. He died the next day in a brain injury hospital.

In a post-execution statement, other members of the young woman’s family said she “was brutally killed by a monster who lived 18 years after the crime.”

“Now we can begin the healing process,” said the statement, distributed by the Bureau of Prisons.

“It shouldn’t have taken us 18 years to receive justice from our angel. She will be loved and missed forever.”

After his 2004 conviction, a judge rejected the complaints stemming from his alleged intellectual disability, noting that he did not receive a diagnosis until after he was sentenced to death.

“Up to that point, Bourgeois had lived a life that, by and large, did not manifest serious intellectual deficiencies,” the court said.

Lawyers argued that the finding was based on misunderstandings about such disabilities. They said Bourgeois had evidence showing that her IQ was around 70, well below average, and that her childhood story supported her claims.

Bourgeois’s lawyers did not argue that he should have been acquitted or that he should not have received a severe penalty, only that he should not be executed, Nolan said.