schema:articleBody
| - The US state of Texas is preparing Wednesday to execute a man convicted of a violent triple murder, who was the first to get a stay of execution due to the pandemic. In the absence of any final appeals, John Hummel, 45, is set to receive a lethal injection Wednesday evening at the Huntsville penitentiary in the southern state. Hummel was sentenced to the death penalty after, in 2009, he stabbed his pregnant wife and father-in-law to death, and then beat his five-year-old daughter to death with a baseball bat before setting fire to their home in Fort Worth, Texas. According to prosecutors, he wanted to start a new life with another woman. He was originally scheduled to be executed on March 17, 2020, but an appeals court pushed back the deadline in extremis "in light of the current health crisis." The court also pointed out that an execution requires "enormous resources," including mandating that dozens of prison guards, lawyers, witnesses, and members of his family and the victims' to be present, increasing the risk of spreading Covid-19. As a result of the pandemic, executions were suspended for months throughout the United States. Texas reopened its execution chamber on May 19 of this year to execute Quinton Jones, a 41-year-old man sentenced to death for the 1999 murder of his great-aunt. Authorities set off backlash from anti-death penalty activists when they failed to invite reporters to witness the execution, as has been customary for decades. Since the start of the year, with the exception of Texas, only the federal government has carried out executions -- three, just before former president Donald Trump left office. chp/to/caw
|