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US carries out the 1st federal execution in nearly 2 decades

FILE - In this Oct. 31 1997, file photo, Daniel Lewis Lee waits for his arraignment hearing for murder in the Pope County Detention Center in Russellville, Ark. Relatives of the victims of Daniel Lewis Lee have pleaded for him to receive the same life sentence as the ringleader in the plot that led to the slayings. Now, family members say their grief is compounded by the push to execute Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.(Dan Pierce/The Courier via AP, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 31 1997, file photo, Daniel Lewis Lee waits for his arraignment hearing for murder in the Pope County Detention Center in Russellville, Ark. Relatives of the victims of Daniel Lewis Lee have pleaded for him to receive the same life sentence as the ringleader in the plot that led to the slayings. Now, family members say their grief is compounded by the push to execute Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.(Dan Pierce/The Courier via AP, File)

By MICHAEL BALSAMO / Associated Press 6 min read

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) – The federal government on Tuesday carried out its first execution in almost two decades, killing by lethal injection a man convicted of murdering an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.

The execution of Daniel Lewis Lee came over the objection of the victims’ relatives and following days of legal wrangling and delays.

Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, professed his innocence just before he was executed at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

“I didn’t do it,” Lee said. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I’m not a murderer.”

His final words were: “You’re killing an innocent man.”