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Judge Delays Execution of Federal Inmate Because of COVID-19

By Adam Pinsker, IPB News | Published on in Crime, Government, Law
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A Federal judge issued a stay in the execution of a man scheduled to die by lethal injection Monday at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute.

Chief Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson Indiana’s southern district agreed in the plaintiff’s favor that attending the execution would be a health risk because of COVID-19.

Danny Lee was sent to federal death row in 1999 for the 1996 murders of William and Nancy Mueller and their 8-year-old daughter.

Mueller’s mother, Earlene Peterson, was one of the plaintiffs in the case. She argued traveling from Arkansas to Indiana to witness the execution could pose a health risk.

Peterson says she also opposes the execution of Lee, and has appealed to President Trump to commute his sentence to life in prison