Christopher Vialva
The US government has executed the first black person since lifting a 17-year moratorium on the death penalty at the federal level. This was reported by the WTHI TV channel.
Christopher Vialva was sentenced to death for the murder of a young married Christian activist couple in 1999 in Texas. The execution by lethal injection took place at Terre Haute prison in Indiana.
On July 14, the first federal execution in 17 years took place in the United States. The death penalty was applied to 47-year-old Daniel Lewis Lee, who was being held in a federal prison in Indiana. In 1999, he was found guilty of murdering a family of three. Two days later, on July 16, it became known about the second execution. A majority of the judges voted in favor of another perpetrator, Wesley Ira Purkey, who brutally raped and murdered the 16-year-old.
In 1976, the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Since that time, more than 1.5 thousand prisoners have been executed in American prisons, but of them only three are federal criminals, the rest of the cases were subject to the decision of local authorities. In July, the US Supreme Court ruled that the first executions in 17 years in US federal prisons could be carried out, overturning the delay previously ordered by the lower court.
