Federal government executes Louisiana man who killed 2-year-old daughter

The U.S. government on Friday executed a Louisiana man convicted of severely abusing his 2-year-old daughter and ultimately killing her in 2002, making it the second federal execution carried out by the Trump administration this week. 

According to The Associated Press, Alfred Bourgeois, 56, was pronounced dead at 8:21 p.m. EST after receiving a lethal injection at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. 

The AP reported that in Bourgeois’s final moments, he argued that he neither killed or abused his daughter. 

“I ask God to forgive all those who plotted and schemed against me, and planted false evidence,” he said. He added: “I did not commit this crime.”

Bourgeois’s lawyers had argued that his IQ put him in an intellectually disabled category, which should have barred him from receiving the death penalty. 

Following Bourgeois’s execution, the girl’s relatives released a joint statement calling the father “a monster.” 

“None of us thought she would return from (visiting Bourgeois) in a casket,” it said, according to the AP. “It should not have taken 18 years to receive justice for our angel.”

According to court filings, Bourgeois gained temporary custody of his daughter, and over the next month physically abused the girl and then refused to seek medical treatment. Prosecutors also argued that he sexually abused the girl. 

Bourgeois, a truck driver, during a trip to Corpus Christi, Texas, grabbed the girl and slammed her head into the windows and dashboard four times. She died the next day from brain injuries. 

Friday’s execution marks the 10th since the Trump administration resumed the practice in July following a 17-year hiatus, AP notes.

On Thursday, the government executed Brandon Bernard by lethal injection, despite nationwide outcry and last-minute appeals to have his execution halted.

Bernard, 40, was a teenager when when he was convicted in a 1999 double murder in Texas. 

His case drew increased interest in recent days, with many on social media — including Kim Kardashian West — and some lawmakers arguing that the death penalty was too harsh a punishment for Bernard, who was 19 when he was sentenced to death.

Bernard’s attorneys asked a federal court of appeals to halt his execution on Wednesday as they explored claims that evidence had been unconstitutionally withheld.

Five jurors who listened to his case and one prosecutor who challenged an appeal by Bernard all came forward to say that they no longer supported the death penalty.

The Supreme Court, however, declined to stay the execution. 

The federal government has three more executions planned in January, each within days of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.