Stacey Brownstein/Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Washington via AP
- Brandon Bernard was executed on Thursday night at the Federal Correctional Center in Terre Haute, Indiana.
- He is the 9th federal execution this year after a 17-year hiatus.
- His lawyers have appealed to have his execution halted and asked for his sentenced to be commuted to life in prison.
- This is also the first execution during a presidential transition of power in over 100 years.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Brandon Bernard was executed on Thursday despite multiple pleas for him to be removed from death row and commuted to life in prison – including from celebrities like Kim Kardashian West.
Bernard, 40, was pronounced dead at 9:27 p.m. at the Federal Correctional Center in Terre Haute, Indiana, CNN reported.
He received a lethal injection of phenobarbital.
His execution was the ninth carried out by the Federal Bureau of Prisons this year after a 17-year hiatus. It’s also the first time an execution has been carried out during a presidential lame-duck period in 130 years, the Associated Press reported. There are five more federal executions scheduled before Trump’s term is up.
Just hours before the execution was scheduled, the Supreme Court denied a request from Attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, who recently joined Bernard’s team.
"Brandon's execution is a stain on America's criminal justice system. But I pray that even in his death, Brandon will advance his commitment to helping others by moving us closer to a time when this country does not pointlessly and maliciously kill young Black men who pose no threat to anyone," Bernard's attorneys Robert Owens and John Carpenter said in a statement.
Bernard was convicted in 2000 for his involvement in the 1999 murders of two youth ministers, Todd and Stacie Bagley, in Texas, when he was 18 years old. He and four other teenagers abducted and robbed the Bagleys while they were on the way from a Sunday service. His role involved setting the car on fire after the Bagleys had been shot in the trunk by another co-conspirator.
His lawyers argue that prosecutors withheld testimony about his low-level position in the gang during his trial. Additionally, they said Bernard was a low-level "subservient" member of the gang, and that the Bagleys were both most likely already dead before he set the car on fire, contrary to what the prosecutors claimed, the AP reported.
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Several jurors who had convicted Bernard of the death penalty have come forward and said they regret not choosing life in prison instead.
There had been several pleas - including from Kim Kardashian West - to urge President Donald Trump to halt Bernard's execution.
Bernard used his last words to apologize to the Bagleys' family.
"I wish I could take it all back, but I can't," he said, the AP reported.
"The apology and remorse ... helped very much heal my heart," Georgia Bagley, Todd's mother, said on Thursday, according to CNN. "I can very much say: I forgive them."
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