The scheduled execution of a Texas death row inmate who was convicted in the killing of another prisoner has been delayed by a judge.

Officials say an investigation has found that new personnel and procedures along with insufficient oversight led to reporters not witnessing the state’s first execution in nearly a year.

It was the first execution since last summer, but a huge error prevents the media from witnessing it.

Credit: Texas Department of Criminal JusticeThe U.S. government is set to execute Christopher Andre Vialva on Thursday for a 1999 Texas double murder. Vialva’s death is scheduled to be the seventh federal execution this year after a push by President Donald Trump’s administration to restart the federal death penalty after a 17-year hiatus. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty nationally in 1976, only three men on federal death row were executed before 2020. At least seven Texas death row inmates have been resentenced to life in prison since the high court’s first ruling against Texas in 2017. Otto said the concern raises multiple uncertainties on how the federal death penalty is meant to be carried out.

Mitchell was the first Native American sentenced to death since the resumption of the federal death penalty in 1994 and the only Native American awaiting his punishment. (Courtesy Auska Mitchell via AP)WASHINGTON The only Native American man on federal death row is asking a judge to halt his execution until he receives a determination to his clemency petition from the Justice Department and President Donald Trump. Mitchell submitted a clemency petition to the Justice Department after his execution was scheduled earlier this summer. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mitchell was the first Native American sentenced to death since the resumption of the federal death penalty in 1994 and the only Native American currently awaiting execution.

A federal judge in Indiana on Friday halted the first federal execution planned in 17 years scheduled three days from now over COVID-19 concerns. Daniel Lee had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on Monday. The injunction delays the execution until there is no longer such an emergency. Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, was convicted in Arkansas of the 1996 killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell. The relatives of the victims had pleaded for years that Lee instead should receive the same life sentence as the ringleader in the deadly scheme.

HOUSTON A Texas death row inmate condemned for fatally shooting an 82-year-old man nearly three decades ago was scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday, as the nations busiest death penalty state prepared to resume executions following a five-month delay during the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied a request to delay Wardlow's execution or commute his sentence to life in prison. If Wardlows execution is carried out, it would be the first in Texas since Feb. 6. A judge moved Wardlow's execution date from April 29 to July 8 after Morris County District Attorney Steve Cowan requested the change citing the statewide disaster declaration due to the virus. Six executions scheduled in Texas for earlier this year were postponed by the courts because of the outbreak.

After 25 years on death row, Billy Wardlow, aided by neuroscientists, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that at 18, he was too young to face Texas death penalty. Texas Department of Criminal JusticeOn Wednesday evening, Texas plans to execute Billy Joe Wardlow for a 1993 East Texas robbery and murder. After 25 years on death row, Wardlow, aided by neuroscientists, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that at 18, he was too young to face Texas death penalty. He has also asked the Texas Supreme Court and Abbott to halt his execution because of the coronavirus pandemic. Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor the Texas Supreme Court had ruled on Wardlows appeals Tuesday night.

The justices blocked Ruben Gutierrezs execution about an hour before he could have been executed. The Texas prison system last year banned clergy from the death chamber following a Supreme Court ruling that halted the execution of another inmate, Patrick Murphy, who had requested a Buddhist adviser be allowed in the chamber. In response to the ruling in Murphys case, the Texas prison system changed its policy, only allowing prison security staff into the execution chamber. Gutierrezs attorneys had also sought a coronavirus-related delay but were turned down Friday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Gutierrez would have been the third inmate put to death this year in Texas and the seventh in the U.S.