TERRE HAUTE, Indiana — The United States government is set to carry out its eighth execution this year today, putting to death a man convicted of murdering a 16-year-old St. Croix girl in 1994.
Orlando Hall of Arkansas is set to die by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, after 25 years on death row.
The District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that it would not intervene in Hall’s execution, or Brandon Bernard’s on Dec. 10. They were among 13 death row inmates who sought an injunction to block federal executions after William LeCroy was found to have experienced pulmonary edema while conscious during his execution in September.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also denied a stay of execution on Wednesday night. Hall’s attorneys sought the injunction on the grounds that his conviction was the product of racial discrimination. Hall is Black and he was convicted by an all-White jury.
Hall, 49, and four other men were found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Lisa Rene. Prosecutors said they killed the teen because her two older brothers stole about $4,700 from them as part of a drug deal.
The U.S. Justice Department said the men were involved in a marijuana trafficking operation in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and traveled to Arlington, Texas, to confront one of the men. They found his sister Lisa at their home and kidnapped her at gunpoint.
Prosecutors said the men drove Rene to a hotel in Arkansas, where they raped her before driving her to a park, beating her and burying her alive.
After the government announced Hall’s execution date in September, his attorneys said it would be a “grave injustice” to move forward with the execution. They argued that although Hall never denied involvement in Rene’s death, they don’t believe the jury would have sentenced him to death if they knew “key facts” about his case.
“Because Mr. Hall’s court-appointed attorneys conducted no meaningful investigation into the case, the jurors were unaware of the severe trauma Mr. Hall suffered growing up in a home marked by poverty and brutality, where he and his siblings witnessed almost daily violence in their parents’ marriage,” a statement from Marcia Widder and Robert Owen said.
Of the five men charged with Rene’s murder, only Hall and one other, Bruce Webster, faced capital prosecution by the federal government. The other three were allowed to sign plea deals for prison time in exchange for testifying against Hall and Webster. Those three men have each served their sentences and been released from prison.
Defense attorneys also blamed racial bias in the selection of Hall’s all-White jury.
“During jury selection, the prosecution team enlisted the help of a former state prosecutor known for keeping Black citizens from serving on criminal juries,” Hall’s attorneys said.
“In the years since Mr. Hall’s trial, the U.S. Supreme Court has expressly found that this very prosecutor, in a trial that preceded Mr. Hall’s, discriminated against Black potential jurors on account of their race and then lied under oath in an attempt to conceal his racist conduct.”
An analysis released earlier this month by the Death Penalty Information Center found that people of color — particularly Black Americans — have disproportionately faced execution in the United States.
Of the 57 people presently on federal death row, 34 are persons of color. At least two dozen are Black men and some were convicted by all-White juries.
If executed on Thursday, Hall will be the eighth person put to death by the federal government this year. The Justice Department resumed federal executions in July after a 17-year hiatus.