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The United States federal government has executed Brandon Bernard, a black man from Texas involved in the murder of a couple in 1999, as multi-week appeals from advocacy groups, juries and others to have his execution postponed failed were heard.
Bernard, 40, received a lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and media witnesses reported his death at 02:32 GMT.
Bernard is the ninth federal inmate to have been executed since July, when US President Donald Trump lifted the 17-year freeze on federal executions, a move that led to condemnation from human rights and civil liberties groups.
Bernard was 18 when he and four other teenagers participated in the murders of Todd and Stacie Bagley, a couple returning from a Sunday church service in Killeen, Texas.
His case caught the attention of death penalty advocates, celebrities and others across the United States due to several factors that they said should have granted him a stay of execution, including his age when the crime occurred and how race influenced his sentence.
Bernard’s case has drawn the attention of human rights groups, who had asked the Trump administration to grant a stay of his execution [Stacey Brownstein/Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Washington via AP]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a national civil rights group, tweeted before Thursday’s execution that “5 of the 9 jurors who sentenced him to death, as well as the appellate attorney who lobbied for a death sentence, now they don’t believe that he should die ”.
“The federal government must not be allowed to kill Brandon Bernard, or anyone. Tonight’s execution should not go ahead, ”the group said.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group, said high-profile American attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, who defended Trump in his impeachment case, had joined the Bernard’s defense team.
They filed a request Thursday for a 14-day stay of execution to submit additional materials in the case, Dunham said.
Defense attorneys had argued in court and in a clemency petition that Bernard was a low-ranking subordinate member of the group that killed the Bagleys, and that he has repeatedly expressed remorse.
“I can’t imagine how they feel about losing their family,” Bernard said of Bagley’s surviving relatives in a 2016 video statement from death row.
“I wish we could all go back and change it,” Bernard said, describing his involvement in youth outreach programs and embracing religion since the killings occurred. “I’ve tried to be a better person since that day,” he said.
Reality star Kim Kardashian was among those who had asked Trump to stop the execution.
He made a last-minute appeal Thursday, saying he had spoken to Bernard on the phone shortly before his execution.
I just got off the phone with Brandon for what will probably be the last time. The hardest call I’ve ever had. Brandon, selfless as ever, focused on his family and made sure they were okay. He told me not to cry because our fight is not over. 😢
– Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) December 10, 2020
“Brandon, selfless as ever, focused on his family and made sure they were okay,” she wrote.
“He told me not to cry because our fight is not over.”
However, the Justice Department refused to delay Bernard’s execution on Thursday, as well as the execution of another inmate scheduled for Friday and three more in January, even after eight officials who participated in an execution last month gave positive for coronavirus.
The nine federal executions carried out this year already exceed all those carried out in the last 56 years combined.
The federal government is set to execute Brandon Bernard tonight, a black man who was sentenced to death for a crime he committed when he was only 18 years old.
People deserve second chances, especially for mistakes made as teenagers.
– the ACLU (@ACLU) December 10, 2020
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