Victims’ Family Says They Were Retraumatized by Government’s Conduct During Federal Executions

When Attorney General William Barr announced in July 2019 that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment planned to resume fed­er­al exe­cu­tions by putting to death Daniel Lewis Lee, the Department of Justice press release announc­ing the death war­rants trum­pet­ed that ​“we owe it to the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies to car­ry for­ward the sen­tence imposed by our jus­tice sys­tem.” But the fam­i­ly of Nancy Mueller (pic­tured) and her eight-year-old daugh­ter Sarah Powell — mur­der vic­tims in Lee’s case — had long opposed his exe­cu­tion. The Department of Justice did not con­sult them in announc­ing the exe­cu­tion, ignored their pleas for clemen­cy, and derid­ed as ​“friv­o­lous” their request that the exe­cu­tion be delayed until after the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, so they could attend with­out risk­ing their lives. The way the gov­ern­ment behaved through­out the course of killing Daniel Lee in their names, they say, has retrau­ma­tized them and pre­vent­ed them from attaining peace.

Lee was exe­cut­ed on the morn­ing of July 14, 2020, strapped to a gur­ney for more than four hours while fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors worked to lift a series of stays of exe­cu­tion and injunc­tions issued by fed­er­al courts in Washington, D.C., Southern Indiana, and Chicago. ​“We have spo­ken out that this is not some­thing we want­ed,” said Monica Veillette, a cousin and niece of the vic­tims. ​“Over and over it’s been said that it’s being done for my aunt and cousin, it’s being done for our fam­i­ly. And in the end, they com­plete­ly dismissed us.”

Although the fam­i­ly opposed Lee’s exe­cu­tion, they believed attend­ing the exe­cu­tion would be an impor­tant move towards heal­ing. But once they raised health ques­tions about the pan­dem­ic, the fed­er­al offi­cials stopped com­mu­ni­cat­ing with them. With their law­suit pend­ing seek­ing to put off the exe­cu­tion until after the pan­dem­ic, the gov­ern­ment told them they had no legal right to wit­ness the exe­cu­tion and gave them no phone call, notice, or expla­na­tion alert­ing them that the exe­cu­tion would go for­ward. ​“William Barr stole that piece of our heal­ing from us by push­ing this [exe­cu­tion] for­ward dur­ing a pan­dem­ic when we could­n’t safe­ly attend,” Veillette said.

In an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette only hours after Lee’s exe­cu­tion, Veillette asked, ​“Who does some­thing like this in the mid­dle of the night [and] feel[s] good about it?”

In October 2019, Earlene Branch Peterson asked President Donald Trump to grant clemen­cy for Lee, who was sen­tenced to death for the mur­ders of Peterson’s daugh­ter, son-in-law, and grand­daugh­ter. She said, ​“Yes, Daniel Lee dam­aged my life, but I can’t believe tak­ing his life is going to change any of that. I can’t see how exe­cut­ing Daniel Lee will hon­or my daugh­ter in any way. In fact, it’s kind of like it dirt­ies her name, because she wouldn’t want it and I don’t want it. That’s not the way it should be. That’s not the God I serve.” 

Peterson, her daugh­ter Kimma Gurel, and Veillette, who had been des­ig­nat­ed as wit­ness­es to the exe­cu­tion, asked the Department of Justice to tem­porar­i­ly post­pone Lee’s exe­cu­tion until after the pan­dem­ic, cit­ing Mrs. Peterson’s age (81) and health con­di­tions that placed Gurel and Veillette at height­ened risk from COVID-19. When prison offi­cials brushed aside their request, the three filed a law­suit in fed­er­al court in the Southern District of Indiana seek­ing to enjoin the exe­cu­tion from tak­ing place. They argued that the Department of Justice had vio­lat­ed fed­er­al law by ​“sched­ul­ing Mr. Lee’s exe­cu­tion dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic with­out ade­quate mea­sures in place to pro­tect them.” The District Court grant­ed their motion on July 10 and issued a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion halt­ing the execution.

Federal pros­e­cu­tors then moved to vacate the injunc­tion, argu­ing that the same vic­tims on behalf of whom it claimed to be car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tion had ​“no inter­est in the mat­ter,” char­ac­ter­iz­ing their safe­ty con­cerns as trav­el ​“pref­er­ences,” and call­ing their motion ​“friv­o­lous.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacat­ed the injunc­tion, and after fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors repeat­ed their demean­ing com­ments in plead­ings in the U.S. Supreme Court, the high court in a 2:00 a.m. deci­sion declined to halt the execution.

“What does it say about them that they dis­re­gard our rights and voic­es and valid health and safe­ty con­cerns while call­ing them ​‘friv­o­lous’?” Veillette asked. ​“My 81-year-old gram­ma had her daugh­ter and grand­daugh­ter mur­dered, but even in her nev­er-end­ing sor­row, made the choice to fight for jus­tice because it’s the right thing to do accord­ing to her own morals and faith. … [That] says some­thing about her immense courage and sense of belief that our jus­tice sys­tem should serve and pro­tect all peo­ple fair­ly and equal­ly, includ­ing Daniel Lee and including her.”

In a radio inter­view on Indiana Public Media the week after the exe­cu­tion, Veillette said the government’s con­duct had denied her peace. But, she said, ​“I want jus­tice in our jus­tice sys­tem more than I want peace for one indi­vid­ual. We lost our fam­i­ly mem­bers, you know, they were mur­dered. We are still griev­ing that loss.”

“This is a heavy bur­den to live with,” said Veillette.