December 11, 2020

US Executes Brandon Bernard During Presidential Transition

By Lillian Searles

Death row inmate Brandon Bernard has been executed in Indiana after last-minute clemency pleas were rejected by the US Supreme Court.

 

He was given the death penalty for his involvement in the murder of Todd and Stacie Bagley in June 1999. He was one of five teenagers accused of robbing and shooting the pair before the car was set on fire.

 

Bernard, now dead at age 40, was convicted of the crime at age 18 in 1999 and is the youngest offender to be executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.

 

Bernard was pronounced dead at 9:27 pm on Thursday at a penitentiary in the city of Terre Haute, Indiana after a lethal injection of phenobarbital.

 

Before that, he spoke his last words. As he spoke, he showed no outward signs of fear or distress, speaking lucidly and naturally. He spoke for more than three minutes, saying he had been waiting for this chance to say he was sorry, not only to the victims’ family but also for the pain he caused his own family.

“I’m sorry. That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day,” he said.

Referring to his part in the killing, he said, “I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t.”

 

The execution was delayed for more than two hours after Bernard’s lawyers asked in vain for the Supreme Court to halt it.

 

Bernard’s attorneys asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to temporarily halt his execution while they pursued claims that the prosecution at his trial unconstitutionally withheld evidence that would have led jurors to give him a life sentence. Five jurors have since come forward to attest that they no longer support the death penalty in the case, while a former prosecutor who challenged Bernard’s appeal of his death verdict said she did not believe he should be put to death, in part, because he was a teenage offender and had become a model prisoner.

Todd and Stacie Bagley

Defence lawyers say both of the Bagleys probably died before Bernard allegedly set the car on fire, and an independent investigator hired by the defence said Stacie had been “medically dead” before the fire.

 

However, government testimony during the trial said that although Todd Bagley had died instantly, Stacie had had soot in her airway, signalling that she had died of smoke inhalation and not the gunshot wound.

 

Bernard’s lawyers say he feared what would happen to him if he refused to follow the orders of Vialva, who was executed in September.

 

Others involved in the incident were given prison sentences as they were under 18 and classed as juveniles.

 

Bernard’s lawyers argued that he should be given life in prison without parole, as, throughout his time in jail, he maintained a good record and worked with outreach programmes to stop people from getting involved in crime.

 

Several high-profile figures, including reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, had appealed to President Donald Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison.

 

The families of Todd and Stacie Bagley both expressed gratitude to President Trump, Attorney General William Barr and other officials.

Todd Bagley’s family said it had been “very difficult” to wait 21 years for the sentence imposed “on those who cruelly participated in the destruction of our children, to be finally completed”.

 

Four more executions are planned before the end of Donald Trump’s presidency. If all five take place, Donald Trump will have overseen the most executions by a US president in more than a century.

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