By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. executed convicted felon Brandon Bernard on Thursday, despite objections by some of the jurors in his trial who pleaded with the Trump administration to show mercy, a media witness confirmed.
Bernard’s death marked the ninth execution since Attorney General William Barr resumed the use of the federal death penalty earlier this year following a 17-year hiatus.
Bernard was convicted in 2000 along with an accomplice, Christopher Vialva, of carjacking and murdering Todd and Stacie Bagley, married Christian youth ministers from Iowa, on the Fort Hood army base in Texas.
At the time of the crime, Bernard was 18 years old. Vialva kidnapped and shot the couple at close range as they lay inside the trunk of the car. Afterwards, Bernard set the car on fire.
The Justice Department executed Vialva on Sept. 24.
Five jurors from the trial of the two men had backed Bernard’s clemency petition, saying his lawyers did a poor job defending him at trial. Though they still agree that both Bernard and Vialva were guilty, they said Bernard did not seem to have intended to kill the Bagleys.
Attorneys for Bernard say that through their own investigation, they discovered prosecutors withheld crucial information that could have proven Bernard was a low-level member of a youth gang, making him less of a threat in the future to re-offend.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; editing by Bill Berkrot, Richard Pullin and Leslie Adler)
