Authorities in the US state of Texas on Wednesday proceeded to execute a man who had been convicted of triple, extremely violent murder, the second after many months of suspended sentences due to the pandemic of the new coronavirus.
John Hamel, 45, was fatally injected into Huntsville Jail; his death was confirmed at 6:49 p.m. (local time).
In 2009, he stabbed his pregnant wife, killed his father-in-law and his five-year-old daughter with a baseball bat before setting fire to their home in Fort Worth, in the southern United States. According to prosecutors, he wanted to rebuild his life with another woman. During the defense, he had psychiatric problems, he suffered mental injuries after his tenure in the Marines.
He was due to be executed on March 17, 2020, but the court of appeals postponed the application of the sentence in extremis due to “the health crisis”. The appellants had explained that the execution would require the presence of many people, guards, lawyers, witnesses, journalists, and that there was a risk of the new coronavirus spreading.
In his case, all executions were suspended for months in the United States.
Texas, the southernmost U.S. state to execute the death penalty, resumed executions May 19 when Quentin Jones, an African-American man convicted of killing his grandmother, was executed.
Since the beginning of the year, with the exception of Texas, only the federal government has carried out executions – three, more specifically – shortly before the ousting of President Donald Trump from the White House.
