"Arkansas executed Ledell Lee on Thursday night, after it fought and won a complex and sometimes confusing legal battle. The state executed him in spite of Lee’s insistence that he was not guilty of murdering Debra Rees, a crime committed more than 20 years ago. It did so despite doubts about whether he had sufficient intellectual capacity to be “eligible” for the death penalty.
The state rushed to put Lee to death before its supply of midazolam expired, claiming that it had a compelling interest in carrying out the “lawful” decision of the jury which sentenced him and that the execution would bring closure to the Rees family. Yet the way it went about doing so hardly seems likely to bring consolation to those who grieve at that family’s terrible loss – and raises many concerns about the potential miscarriage of justice."
How can we execute people if 1 in 25 on death row are innocent? | Austin Sarat | Opinion | The Guardian
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