A Louisiana man on death row for more than 15 years for the abuse and murder of his young daughter is set to be executed Friday evening, the second death penalty case in as many days to be carried out by the federal government.
The planned execution of Alfred Bourgeois, 56, by lethal injection comes after Brandon Bernard, 40, was put to death Thursday at the federal penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana.
Bernard was 18 when he was arrested as an accomplice in the 1999 abduction and murder of two youth ministers in Texas. His execution made him the youngest person, based on his age when the offense occurred, in nearly seven decades to be put to death by the federal government.
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His death was opposed by some politicians, celebrities, including Kim Kardashian West, and high-profile attorneys who were unsuccessful in their 11th-hour appeal to the Supreme Court and President Donald Trump to intervene. Attorneys for Bernard said the prosecution at his trial unconstitutionally withheld evidence that would have led jurors to give him a life sentence.
Bourgeois is set to become the 10th federal execution this year barring any last-minute court action. Previous execution attempts were halted after his attorneys argued he has an intellectual disability that should prevent him from being put to death under a 2002 Supreme Court decision regarding defendants’ mental capacity.
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Bourgeois, a long-haul trucker, was convicted of torturing his 2-year-old daughter physically, sexually and emotionally, and during a delivery route to the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, beating her to death after she tipped over her potty training seat, according to the Department of Justice.
After a 17-year hiatus of executions on the federal level, the Trump administration resumed them in July over objections by civil liberties and prisoner advocate groups about the risk and spread of the coronavirus. The last time there were multiple executions during a president’s lame-duck period was more than 130 years ago, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The Trump administration’s return to the use of the federal death penalty has included executing the only Native American on death row, against his tribe’s wishes, and the planned execution next month of the first female inmate in almost seven decades. President-elect Joe Biden has said he will put a moratorium on the death penalty.
The recent executions have also drawn protests calling out the systemic racial bias surrounding capital punishment and highlighting how four of the five most recent scheduled executions, including that of Bernard and Bourgeois, involve Black men.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
