A convicted murderer is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday as the administration of President Donald Trump carries out a series of federal executions in its waning days in power, ignoring calls for clemency and Covid-19 outbreaks behind bars.
Brandon Bernard, a 40-year-old African-American, is to be put to death at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for his role in a 1999 double murder in Texas committed when he was 18 years old.
More than €500,000 people have signed petitions urging Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison, citing his age at the time of the crime and his good behavior as an inmate.
Among those lending their support to Bernard is reality television star Kim Kardashian.
Television Rearity show star is of opinion that at just a few months past 18 years , the convicts brain was still developing admitting that Brandon did participated in the crime, but his role was minor compared to that of the other teens involved, two of whom are home from prison now.
Bernard and four other Black teenagers were convicted of abducting youth ministers Todd and Stacie Bagley, a white couple from Iowa. They forced them to withdraw cash before eventually shooting and burning them in their car.
The shooter, then-19-year-old Christopher Vialva, and Bernard, who lit the car on fire, were sentenced to death in 2000.
Vialva was executed by lethal injection in September but other participants who were under the age of 17 at the time avoided the death penalty.
