TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — Federal executions are set to continue at the Terre Haute facility with another death row inmate scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday.
Barring any last-minute appeals, Orlando Hall will become the eighth person executed after a nearly two-decade pause.
Hall was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering 16-year-old girl Lisa Rene in Texas in 1994. According to court records, Hall and his accomplices buried Rene alive to get revenge on her two brothers for a botched $5,000 marijuana deal.
MyWabashValley.com’s own Dana Winklepleck was selected as a media witness for the execution.
Members of the Terre Haute Death Penalty Resistance and Sisters of Providence will once again protest the execution across the street from the main entrance of the penitentiary.
Sister Barbara Battista said the protests are important for many reasons, including spreading the word that the executions are happening.
“No one should be killed in our name, and if that’s going to happen, we want to be there to witness it and to say, ‘no, not in our name,'” she said.
A virtual vigil is also planned at same time as the protests for those unable to attend in person.
Battista said the Terre Haute Death Penalty Resistance group will be part of a presence in Washington, D.C. Thursday lobbying for the abolishment of the death penalty.
Members of Congress including US Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois penned a letter last week to U.S. Attorney General William Barr urging the suspension of all federal executions until the new administration takes office and can “evaluate and determine the future use of the death penalty by the federal government.”
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