Man On Death Row Files A Lawsuit To Avoid Execution, Calls The Death Penalty A 'Hate Crime'
A man on death row is asking government officials to release him from federal execution.
Federal inmate Brandon Council filed a $400 million lawsuit to avoid execution, claiming that the death penalty “doesn’t solve anything.”
“The death penalty is a hate crime, it is a hate crime. It is a retaliatory hate crime that is not justified,” Council told Front Page Detectives.
Council is on death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, after being convicted of killing two bank employees outside of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in August 2017.
“There is nothing righteous about killing an individual,” he ironically told the outlet while condemning the death penalty.
“I don’t believe killing me would be justice,” he continued.
Council’s two victims, Donna Major and Katie Skeen, were killed by fatal gunshot wounds, including one shot that was fired right between Skeen’s eyes.
Video of the tragic incident was caught on surveillance tapes, and were later played at Council’s federal court trial in 2019, which lasted for weeks.
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“I realize there is not an appropriate or acceptable way to apologize for my actions,” Council said at the hearing. “I know because of my actions the world is without two spectacular human beings.”
“I am truly, forever sorry,” he said. “I am ashamed of my actions,” he said, according to the Myrtle Beach Sun News
In the sentencing phase of the trial, Council’s attorneys tried to use details from his seemingly traumatic past to avoid the death penalty, including that he spent time in a North Carolina youth facility where physical and sexual abuse occurred.
The jury on the case still reached a unanimous verdict, despite the effort from Council and his attorneys.
The families of the two victims were unforgiving.
“The hatred I have for you runs so deep,” Katie Major, daughter of one of the victims, said during her testimony. “I don’t feel bad for you. I feel sorry for you.”
Skeen’s mother, Betty Davis, also testified, saying “I don’t forgive you. I will never forgive you. I don’t hate you. You are nothing but the man that took away Donna and Katie.”
