Brandon Bernard, was 18 when he was an accomplice in a 1999 double murder in Texas. The now father has been lethally injected in a federal prison due to an unsuccessful attempt of an eleventh-hour court intervention or reversal by the Trump administration.
As many activist including Kim Kardashian West are pushed for federal appeals court to temporarily halt his execution, Judge James Sweeney had denied a motion for a stay of execution for Brandon Bernard.
Kim Kardashian West spoke to Brand Bernard hours before final determination.
“2 hours until Brandon Bernard is executed. My heart breaks for everyone involved, including the victims families and in no way am I diminishing the loss their family has been through,” she wrote before issuing a follow-up tweet adding, “I stand by what I have always said, I can empathize and feel pain for the victims and their families. Killing Brandon will not bring them back and I believe in my heart of hearts killing him isn’t right. What Brandon did was wrong, but killing him won’t make things right.”
Her following tweet for Brandon Bernard placed shame on a national celebration in the U.S. “1 hour until Brandon Bernard will be executed. It’s #HumanRightsDay and here in the United States we are executing someone who was 18 at the time of the crime, was not the shooter and has rehabilitated himself. So shameful.”
Others have gone to twitter as well, noting that with Brandon Bernard’s execution Trump now has the highest number of executions during his administration in the history of the United States.
Angela Moore was the federal prosecutor who defended Bernard’s death sentence on appeal. Now in private practice in San Antonio, Moore penned an Op-Ed on Nov. 18 calling for Bernard’s life to be spared.
She also spoke out saying, “I had been a state prosecutor in San Antonio before becoming a federal appellate prosecutor, and I had prosecuted death penalty cases before,” Moore wrote. “Like a lot of people, I didn’t think about the day when the government would take Brandon out of his prison cell and kill him.”
Kim K also spoke out after Bernard’s death saying, I’m so messed up right now. Nevertheless, some of Kim’s fans were on the opposition of her emotions feeling as though justice was served.
Brandon Bernard was pronounced dead at 9:27 p.m. He was the youngest in U.S history to receive the death penalty in 70 years for a crime committed as an adolescent.
