Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death this morning for the murder of a Kansas City teenager in 1998 after the Supreme Court lifted two stays blocking his execution.
Purkey was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 8:19 a.m. EDT.
His execution came after a flurry of legal moves seeking to halt the procedure.
On Wednesday morning, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., granted Purkey a preliminary injunction after his lawyers said he was incompetent to be executed, citing his dementia, mental illness and a history of being abused as a child.
A federal appeals court later in the day upheld the injunction, but the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, lifted it, clearing the way for his execution.
Purkey admitted to abducting 16-year-old Jennifer Long as she was walking home from high school, raping and murdering her in his Lansing, Kansas, home and then dismembering her body.
A federal jury convicted him in 2003 of kidnapping resulting in a child’s death, and he was sentenced to death.
His execution was originally set for December 13, 2019, but legal challenges had delayed it.
Lee was a member of a white supremacist group who was convicted of killing an Arkansas family of three, including an 8-year-old girl.
Lee was the first of four men sentenced to death after the Trump administration announced last year that it would resume federal executions.
The four also include Keith Dwayne Nelson, 45, who admitted to the 2001 abduction of Pamela Butler while she was rollerblading in front of her Kansas City, Kansas, home, then raping her and strangling her with a wire.
Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, only three federal executions have taken place, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
One of them was Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for his role in the 1995 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people.
But after a botched state execution in Oklahoma in 2014, President Barack Obama ordered a review of how the death penalty is applied in the U.S.
Source: hppr.org, D. Margolies, July 16, 2020
Wesley Ira Purkey executed in Terre Haute, 2nd man put to death this week
For the 2nd time this week, a man was executed by lethal injection inside a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Wesley Ira Purkey was pronounced dead at 8:19 a.m. Thursday.
“I deeply regret the pain and suffering I’ve caused Jennifer’s family..." Purkey said in his last words. "This sanitized murder really does not serve no purpose whatsoever.”
William Long, Jennifer's father, said what happened Thursday morning was a long time coming.
"We took care of today what we needed to take care," he told reporters after the execution. "He needed to take his last breath because he took my daughter's last breath. There is no closure. There never will be because I won't get my daughter back."
The 68-year-old from Kansas was convicted on Nov. 3, 2003, of the rape and murder of 16-year-old Jennifer Long in Missouri. Officials said he then dismembered, burned and dumped the girl’s body in a septic pond.
Prior to his conviction for Long's death, Purkey pleaded guilty to using a claw hammer to bludgeon to death an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio and walked with a cane. For that, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Purkey's execution came 2 days and 12 minutes after Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death.
Lee's death marked the 1st federal execution in 17 years.
Both executions were delayed by the courts, with a federal judge granting injunctions within hours of the scheduled deaths. The Department of Justice ultimately prevailed in both cases, which each reached the Supreme Court of the United States.
The execution
Media witnesses were allowed into the brick building where executions are performed at 7:53 a.m. Two minutes later, the shades were lifted, allowing them a view of Purkey, already strapped to the execution table. IVs that carried the lethal injection drugs were already inserted into each of his hands. Dark purple veins stood out on his left hand.
After a legal battle that involved Purkey's mental state, he appeared to be lucid and aware of where he was and what was happening.
When asked if he wanted to make a final statement, Purkey said, "please." He said he was "deeply, deeply sorry" for the pain he caused both the victim's family and his own daughter.
When the lethal pentobarbital was pumped into his body, Purkey began to blink rapidly. His chest continued to rise and fall deeply. After several minutes, his breaths became shorter. His mouth opened slightly.
All the while, a chaplain in full PPE stood in the execution chamber with his hands before his face in prayer.
A witness last saw Purkey's chest move at 8:02 a.m.
17 minutes later came the announcement: "Death occurred at 8:19 a.m. This concludes the execution of inmate Purkey."
The curtains closed.
Courts delay Purkey's death
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan granted a preliminary injunction early Wednesday to delay Purkey's death, which was initially scheduled for 4 p.m. the same day. His attorneys said Purkey suffers from dementia and schizophrenia. She later granted another injunction.
A 5-4 Supreme Court decision lifted those injunctions early Thursday.
The 14-page order from Chutkan states that Purkey experienced repeated sexual abuse and molestation by those who cared for him as a child. He suffered multiple traumatic brain injuries, the first in 1968 when he was 16.
"At 14, he was first examined for possible brain damage, and at 18, he was diagnosed with schizophrenic reaction, schizoaffective disorder, and depression superimposed upon a preexisting antisocial personality," court documents state. "At 68, he suffers from progressive dementia, schizophrenia, complex-post traumatic stress disorder, and severe mental illness."
The order says that Purkey sought to stop the execution on grounds that he was not competent to be executed, and that Attorney General William Barr and Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal did not afford him due process in connection with this Eighth Amendment claim.The Eighth Amendment prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments.
More executions scheduled
2 more inmates are scheduled to be executed at the Terre Haute prison, including one this week.
Dustin Lee Honken, who shot and killed 5 people — including two men who planned to testify against him — is scheduled to be executed Friday.
Keith Dwayne Nelson, who kidnapped, raped and strangled a 10-year-old girl, is scheduled to be executed Aug. 28.
Purkey becomes the 9th condemned individual to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,521st overall since executions resumed in the USA on January 17, 1977.
Sources: Indianapolis Star, Staff & Rick Halperin, July 16, 2020
U.S. executes killer Wesley Purkey, 2nd this week
The federal government on Thursday carried out its 2nd execution this week after the Supreme Court again lifted a judge's order blocking the lethal injection of inmate Wesley Purkey and 2 others.
Purkey, 68, was put to death at 8:19 a.m. EDT at the U.S. Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Ind. He had been scheduled to die Wednesday before Washington, D.C., District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted a stay blocking his death and executions for 2 other federal inmates.
In a 1-page order early Thursday, the high court granted a Justice Department request to vacate the stay, which came via a 5-4 decision.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan dissented.
Thursday's order was a repeat performance by the Supreme Court. Chutkan had also blocked Lee's execution on Monday before the high court stepped in early Tuesday.
The government executed Purkey for the rape and murder of 16-year-old Jennifer Long in 1998. After killing the teen, he dismembered, burned and dumped her body in a septic pond. He was also convicted in state court of murdering 80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales with a hammer.
Purkey's attorneys had argued that his execution should at least be delayed because dementia has left him unable to understand his punishment.
"Wes Purkey is a severely brain-damaged and mentally ill man who suffers from Alzheimer's disease," defense attorney Rebecca Woodman said.
Sotomayor wrote in dissent that proceeding with Purkey's execution now, despite "grave questions and factual findings" about his mental competency, cast a "shroud of constitutional doubt over the most irrevocable of injuries."
A 3rd execution at the Terre Haute facility, for inmate Dustin Lee Honken, is scheduled for Friday, and a 4th, for Keith Dwayne Nelson, is set for Aug. 28.
Source: United Press International, Staff, July 16, 2020
US executes 2nd man in a week; lawyers said he had dementia
The United States on Thursday carried out its 2nd federal execution this week, killing by lethal injection a Kansas man whose lawyers contended he had dementia and was unfit to be executed.
Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Purkey was convicted of kidnapping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering, burning and dumping her body in a septic pond. He also was convicted in a state court in Kansas after using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who had polio.
Purkey expressed remorse right before he was executed.
“I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer’s family,” he said. “I am deeply sorry. I deeply regret the pain I caused to my daughter, who I love so very much. This sanitized murder really does not serve no purpose whatsoever.”
His time of death was 8:19 a.m. EDT.
The Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to take place just hours before, ruling in a 5-4 decision. The four liberal justices dissented, like they did for the first case earlier this week.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “proceeding with Purkey’s execution now, despite the grave questions and factual findings regarding his mental competency, casts a shroud of constitutional doubt over the most irrevocable of injuries.” She was joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
Both executions were delayed into the day after they were scheduled as legal wrangling continued late into the night and into the next morning.
The Justice Department has been questioned for holding the executions in the middle of the worsening coronavirus pandemic, prompting lawsuits over fears those who would travel to the prison could become infected. The decision to resume executions after nearly two decades was criticized as a dangerously political move in an election year, forcing an issue that is not high on the list of American priorities considering the 11%
Source: wthitv.com, Staff, July 16, 2020
Trump, Barr to seek the death penalty in slayings of 2 Brentwood teens, other killings
President Donald Trump and U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced Wednesday a nationwide federal attack on the MS-13 street gang, and their intention to seek the death penalty for the leader of Brentwood clique in the alleged killings of 2 Brentwood High School teenage girls and 5 other slayings on Long Island.
The intention to seek the death penalty for Alexi Saenz, 25, of Central Islip, known by the nicknames of “Blasty,” or “Big Homie,” if carried out after conviction at a trial, would be the 1st federal execution involving a murder in New York since 1954.
Barr noted that Trump previously met with the families of the 2 girls. Both families were invited to attend Trump’s State of the Union Address in 2018 and met privately with Trump at the White House.
“Earlier in his administration he met with the families of victims that have been killed by MS-13 including a family of two young girls who were butchered with machetes,” Barr said.”The person that we are seeking the death penalty against was involved in those murders, as well as the murder of two African Americans who they, they just saw on the street, [and] thought they were from a rival gang.”
Barr, briefly lauded the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham Jr., from the Eastern District of New York, who serves as the director of Joint Task Force Vulcan, a group formed to eradicate the gang’s footprint. Durham was at the Oval Office and noted he has been working on MS-13 cases for 10 years.
Barr described Long Island as “one of the hotbeds of MS-13 activity, or at least it was.”
Trump, who has twice visited Long Island and held roundtables with law enforcement officials and victims on the issue of MS-13, said the arrests were part of an “all out campaign” to “destroy MS-13, a vile and evil gang of people.”
Source: newsday.com, Staff, July 16, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
