Orlando Hall, 49, is the eighth inmate to be executed by the federal government this year after a 17-year hiatus on executions (article available here). A judge's stay over concerns about the execution drug gave Hall a reprieve, but for less than six hours. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the stay, he was killed via lethal injection late Thursday at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, where he was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m.
According to Hall's attorneys, Hall did not receive a fair trial because of a racially biased prosecutor that prohibited Black jurors from serving and had inadequate assistance of counsel. Hall, who was Black, was sentenced to death by an all-white jury.
The execution was one of three planned for coming weeks, and departs from a 131-year norm of outgoing administrations holding off on executions to enable their successors to decide on them.