Admitted White Supremacist Put to Death in First U.S. Federal Execution in 17 Years

Nick Kangadis | July 16, 2020
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For those that argue against the death penalty, here’s a question. Are you going to miss an admitted white supremacist who was convicted of torturing and killing an entire Arkansas family? Of course the murderer said he didn’t do, but isn’t everyone in jail “innocent?”

Self-proclaimed white supremacist Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday morning in Indiana after a federal appeals court ruled just two days earlier that the execution could proceed. A preliminary injunction to halt four upcoming executions, including Lee’s, was filed by Judge Tanya Chutkan, a U.S. district court judge in Washington D.C. mere hours before Lee’s scheduled execution.

The Supreme Court voted 5 to 4, overruling Chutkan’s injunction, according to Fox News.

Lee was given a lethal dose of pentobarbital at 8:07 a.m. on Tuesday.

Lee’s accomplice, Chevie Kehoe, aided in the death of William Frederick Mueller, his wife Nancy Ann Mueller and his 8-year-old stepdaughter Sarah Elizabeth Powell in 1996.

According to The Jerusalem Post:

Both Lee and Kehoe admitted to being part of a white supremacist group; Kehoe was reportedly raised within the Christian Identity movement, which holds that Jews are the children of Satan, and that whites are the true Israelites, and was known to frequent Elohim City, an Ayrian Nation separatist compound in Oklahoma, where he met Lee.

The year before the murders, Kehoe had burgled the Mueller home, stealing a large cache of guns and ammunition from William, a gun-dealer, in addition to cash. That same year, he and another man had also robbed and kidnapped a couple, Malcolm and Jill Friedman, breaking into their home and stealing $16,000. The couple, who were Episcopalians, were told by Kehoe that they were targeted because their surname sounded Jewish, according to the New York Times.

The Mueller’s were reportedly Jewish as well, so the kidnapping of the Friedman’s wasn’t the first time that Kehoe targeted Jewish people.

As for the 47-year-old Lee, a witness to his execution said that Lee denied the murders just before being put down.

“You’re killing an innocent man,” Lee’s said in his last words.

Of course they did. Court's can absolutely get things wrong, but for the Supreme Court to rule in favor of proceeding with the execution would imply that Lee wasn't what his last words claimed he was.

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