US carries out first Federal Executions in 17 years

Convicted US murderer Daniel Lewis Lee has been put to death, hours after the Supreme Court allowed the first executions of federal inmates in 17 years.

This comes a year after the Trump administration said it would resume federal executions.

A number of executions were initially delayed when a judge ruled on Monday that there were still unresolved legal challenges.

The condemned prisoners had argued that lethal injections constitute “cruel and unusual punishments”.

But the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that “executions may proceed as planned”.

Lee was executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, early on Tuesday.

He was convicted of torturing and killing a family of three in Arkansas in 1996, dumping their bodies in a lake.

Some relatives of his victims had opposed the execution and sought to have it delayed, arguing that attending it could expose them to coronavirus.