Nancy Mueller's family members didn't want to watch the man convicted of murdering her and her daughter be executed in December, but they still decided to go.
The execution was stayed and is now rescheduled for July 13. As the new execution date looms, the covid-19 outbreak has made them less sure of whether to attend.
"It's a strange time, just in general," said Monica Veillette, Mueller's niece, who lives in Spokane, Wash. "I mean, we're in the middle of a pandemic. We're on a mask mandate ... and we're supposed to be traveling [to Indiana] in two weeks?"
Daniel Lewis "Danny" Lee will be executed July 13 at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.
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The pandemic has also affected how Lee communicates with his attorneys, who are unable to visit him in person, and it remains unclear whether his legal team will be present at his execution, due to the virus.
His attorneys on Thursday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Little Rock seeking a postponement due to the covid-19 emergency. They have asked a judge to push back the execution date until spring 2021, stating that the court has the "unchallengeable discretion" to modify the date. The judge hasn't ruled on the motion.
Lee and his accomplice, Chevie Kehoe, were convicted in the January 1996 slayings of the Mueller family outside Tilly.
William Mueller, 52, his wife Nancy, 28, and her daughter Sarah Powell, 8, were asphyxiated inside their home and their bodies were dumped in a bayou outside Russellville.
Lee, 46, and Kehoe, 47, were arrested, tried and convicted of the three murders. Lee was sentenced to death; Kehoe was sentenced to life in prison. The sentencing disparity remains a source of consternation for the victims' family who believe that Lee, like Kehoe, should have been sentenced to life in prison. Kehoe was not only the ringleader, but the one who killed the little girl, according to evidence presented at trial.
Veillette called the awaiting execution for Lee "a heavy burden" for her and her family. To them, witnessing the execution means making a statement about their disapproval of the death penalty for Lee, Veillette said.
"We have said we are going to be there," she said. "Nancy and Sarah would not want this to be done in their names and if we're not there to say that, it would be like it is being done in their names."
But the covid-19 epidemic is making them second-guess that decision.
"Now it's like having a choice between our own health and doing what's right," she said.
Mueller's mother, Earlene Peterson, is 81 and has congestive heart failure. Veillette said Peterson's doctor told her not to go. She said her grandmother likely will go, but won't board a plane. Peterson's son will drive her from their Hector home to Terre Haute, which is a 550-mile drive.
In all likelihood, six of Mueller's family members will be present. None, according to Veillette, will want to be there. Peterson has released public statements to President Donald Trump urging him to grant clemency to Lee.
"Yes, I believe you have to pay for what you do, but that don't mean death," Peterson said during a video interview last year. Peterson declined an interview request last week.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced June 15 that the executions of four child killers on federal death row had been scheduled for this summer. Lee's execution will be the first.
"The American people, acting through Congress and Presidents of both political parties, have long instructed that defendants convicted of the most heinous crimes should be subject to a sentence of death," Barr stated in a news release at the time. "We owe it to the victims of these horrific crimes, and to the families left behind, to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system."
Barr's statement did not mention the covid-19 pandemic.
It isn't only Mueller's family being affected by the virus. Lee's attorneys haven't been able to see him. Various motions have been filed on his behalf and he has been consulted, but only by phone, said Ruth Friedman, director of the Federal Capital Habeas Project, a federal public defender group representing Lee.
"There are things he needs to be involved with and he needs to give us his thoughts and desires on those things," Friedman said. "He can only talk over the phone and that suppresses his ability to speak freely. It really puts us in a spot. It really puts him in a spot."
Friedman, who lives in Washington, D.C., has been actively involved in the case, as have attorneys Morris Moon and George Kouros, both of whom filed Thursday's motion seeking a postponement. All three are still contemplating whether to travel to Terre Haute for the execution, Friedman said.
"I know everybody is terrified," she said. "This has been an elective thing. The execution doesn't have to happen right now. I don't like being put in this position and certainly it's not fair to my client."
In their motion, Moon and Kouros stated that the execution has been set "in the midst of an unprecedented and worsening health crisis" and that they have been left with the "unthinkable choice of abandoning [our] professional obligations" to their client.
In response to questions submitted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman said safety protocols will be in place for visitors and spectators, but acknowledged that social distancing "may not be feasible" inside the witness room, due to its size and expected capacity.
Temperature checks will be required upon entering the complex and masks will be issued.
"The safety of our staff and the members of the community are of the utmost importance," the Bureau said in a statement.
Lee's attorneys said it will be impossible for prison officials to keep spectators safe under current conditions.
"[The Department of Justice is] ... aiming to control a situation that is not in their power to control," Moon and Kouros wrote in their motion. "That is the nature of COVID-19."
As of Wednesday, there had been five federal inmates who had tested positive for covid-19 at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, according to the federal government.
Terre Haute is in Vigo County, the 17th largest county in Indiana by population. As of Thursday, it had the 38th highest number of covid-19 cases in the state and has reported eight deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Friedman said there will be risk of infection for anyone traveling to and from the prison, as well as inside the prison itself.
"This is not a social-distancing event," she said. "The rooms are not big. You are right next to somebody."
There has been one execution in the United States since the start of the covid-19 emergency, according to the Federal Capital Habeas Project. It took place May 19 in Missouri. Other states -- Ohio, Tennessee and Texas -- have called off executions during the pandemic.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said prisons across the country have been "hot spots" for covid-19. The nonprofit doesn't take a stance on the death penalty itself, but it is critical of the manner in which it's administered.
Dunham insisted that holding any execution during the pandemic places the public's health at risk.
"Why not act responsibly with respect to the coronavirus?" he asked. "Why take the unnecessary risks and simply carry out the law when it is safe to do so?"
Veillette said she has bought her plane ticket. She will be accompanied by her daughter, mother and stepfather. She said last week she was still waiting on a recommendation from her doctor.
She wouldn't put a percentage on the likelihood of her going, but she indicated she would probably go in spite of the fear she has for herself and her family.
"I am worried," she said. "I don't want to go and one of us ends up sick or worse. I think about all of the people coming in from God knows where.
"I have family coming up from Arkansas, where numbers are also going up. There are media coming in from different areas. We're all getting there at the same time. ... Why can't this wait? Why can't we just wait until it's safer for everyone?"
