Prior to 2020, the federal government executed only three persons in over half a century. But thanks largely to the efforts and persistence of US Attorney General William Barr, the feds as of tonight have been able to complete double that many executions in just the year 2020. This AP story about the latest execution, headlined "US government executes killer obsessed with witchcraft," includes these details:
The U.S. government on Tuesday executed a former soldier who said an obsession with witchcraft led him to kill a Georgia nurse he believed had put a spell on him.
William Emmett LeCroy, 50, was pronounced dead at 9:06 p.m. EDT after receiving a lethal injection at the same U.S. prison in Terre Haute, Indiana where five others have been executed i n 2020 following a 17-year period without a federal execution....
Another execution, of Christopher Vialva, is scheduled Thursday. He would be the first African-American on federal death row to be put to death in the series of federal executions this year....
LeCroy broke into the Cherrylog, Georgia, mountain home of 30-year-old Joann Lee Tiesler on Oct. 7, 2001, and waited for her to return from a shopping trip. When she walked through the door, LeCroy struck her with a shotgun, bound and raped her. He then slashed her throat and repeatedly stabbed her in the back....
LeCroy’s lawyers sought to halt the execution on appeal on multiple grounds, including that his trial lawyers didn’t properly emphasize evidence about his upbringing and mental health that could have persuaded jurors not to impose a death sentence.
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