First federal execution in 17 years set for Monday after court rejects suit by victims' family who said they couldn't attend lethal injection of killer white supremacist because of the coronavirus

The first federal execution in 17 years is set to go ahead on Monday after a U.S. appeals court overturned a lower court injunction, saying a lawsuit by the victims' family that had put the execution on hold had no legal standing.

Daniel Lewis Lee was convicted in the killing of three members of an Arkansas family in 1996. But some relatives of his victims opposed him receiving the death sentence. He is due to be put to death by lethal injection at the U.S. Justice Department's execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana.

His execution had been blocked on Friday by a federal judge after some of the victims' relatives sued, saying they feared that attending could expose them to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

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Daniel Lewis Lee, seen above in this October 1997 file photo, is scheduled to be executed on Monday. He murdered three members of an Arkansas family in 1996

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Lee was condemned to death by a federal jury in 1999 for the murders of Bill Mueller, his wife Nancy (right), and Nancy's daughter, Sarah Powell (left)

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The mother of Nancy Mueller, Earlene Peterson, is opposed to Lee's execution

As the number of coronavirus infections rises in about 40 states, the Bureau of Prisons said on Sunday that a staff member involved in preparations for the resumption of federal executions had tested positive for COVID-19.

The lawsuit filed against the Justice Department in federal court in Indianapolis sought to block the execution until the pandemic had passed. U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ordered the department to delay the execution until it could show it was upholding the plaintiffs' right to attend the execution without risking their health.

The government appealed and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sunday overturned the injunction, saying no federal statute or regulation gave the victims the right to attend the execution.

Attorney General William Barr said last July that the Justice Department would resume carrying out executions of some of the 62 inmates on federal death row.

He originally scheduled five executions for last December, but had to delay them while long-running lawsuits challenging the government's lethal-injection protocol played out.

An appeals court overturned that injunction in April, and Barr announced new execution dates for July and August of four inmates, all men convicted of murdering children: Lee, Wesley Purkey, Dustin Honken and Keith Nelson.

Inmates (left to right) Wesley Ira Purkey, 68; Dustin Lee Honken, 52; and Keith Dwayne Nelson, 45, are scheduled for execution by order of US Attorney General William Barr

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The executions of four death row inmates will take place at the Federal Correctional Complex Terre Haute in Terre Haute, Indiana

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Lee is an avowed white supremacist

Prosecutors say Lee was a member of a white supremacist group that murdered Arkansas gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell, then dumped their bodies in a swamp. He was convicted in 1999 of multiple offenses including murder in aid of racketeering.      

Chevie Kehoe, whom prosecutors described as the ringleader, recruited Lee in 1995 for his white supremacist organization. 

Two years later, they were arrested for the killings of the Muellers and Sarah in Tilly, Arkansas, about 75 miles northwest of Little Rock. 

At their 1999 trial, prosecutors said Kehoe, of Colville, Washington, and Lee stole guns and $50,000 in cash from the Muellers as part of their plan to establish a whites-only nation.

The relatives, including Earlene Branch Peterson, who lost her daughter and granddaughter in the killing, had urged the Trump administration for months not to move forward with the death sentence and had argued their grief is compounded by the push to execute Lee in the middle of a pandemic.

 Of the other three inmates scheduled to be executed, Purkey, of Kansas, raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl and killed an 80-year-old woman; Honken killed five people in Iowa, including two children; and Nelson kidnapped a 10-year-old girl who was rollerblading in front of her Kansas home and raped her in a forest behind a church before strangling the young girl to death with a wire.