Corey Johnson was executed by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, and was pronounced dead at 11:34 p.m. ET on Thursday.
Johnson was sentenced to die after he was convicted of killing 7 people in 1992 as a part of the drug trade in Virginia. The weeks preceding his execution were defined by a tense legal battle after he contracted Covid-19 while on death row.
In his final statement, Johnson apologized for his crimes and told the families of the victims that he hoped they would find peace. He also thanked the staff at the prison, the prison's chaplain, his minister and his legal team.
"I would have said I was sorry before, but I didn't know how. I hope you will find peace," he said, according to a statement released by his lawyers. "To my family, I have always loved you, and your love has made me real. On the streets, I was looking for shortcuts, I had some good role models, I was side tracking, I was blind and stupid. I am not the same man that I was."
The Supreme Court denied a last-ditch effort late Thursday by Johnson's legal team that leaned on claims of an intellectual disability and his Covid-19 diagnosis, arguing that his infection paired with a lethal injection would amount to a cruel and unusual punishment.
That appeal came after an appellate court on Wednesday tossed out a lower court's decision to stay the executions of Johnson and another death row inmate who contracted the virus, Dustin Higgs, whose execution is scheduled to take place Friday.
"The government must stop trying to execute Corey Johnson while he is still recovering from the COVID-19 infection he contracted as a result of the government's own irresponsibility in carrying out executions during the pandemic," Donald Salzman, an attorney for Johnson, had said in a statement earlier Thursday.
"There is no principled reason not to wait until the injunction expires in March to assess whether Mr. Johnson's lungs have healed sufficiently that he will not suffer excruciating pain during an execution."
After Johnson's death, his legal team mourned his passing in a statement, saying that he should never have been executed.
"We loved Corey Johnson, and we knew him as a gentle soul who never broke a rule in prison and kept trying, despite his limitations, to pass the GED. His family and loved ones are in our hearts," his attorneys said. "We wish also to say that the fact Corey Johnson should never have been executed cannot diminish the pain and loss experienced by the families of the victims in this case. We wish them peace and healing."
Johnson's legal team has also said that he has an IQ of 69, which would be lower than one standard offered by the Supreme Court as a guide for states weighing whether such an execution met the Constitution's cruel and unusual punishment standards.
"He is a person with intellectual disability who cannot constitutionally be executed," Salzman argued Thursday morning. "The government should withdraw Corey's execution date, or President Trump should grant him clemency."
According to the US Justice Department, Johnson and several co-conspirators were partners between 1989 and 1992 in a "large drug-trafficking conspiracy" based in Richmond, Virginia.
As part of their operation, the department said, Johnson murdered seven people over "perceived slights or rivalry in the drug trade" -- Peyton Johnson, Louis Johnson, Bobby Long, Dorothy Armstrong, Anthony Carter, Linwood Chiles and Curtis Thorne. Johnson said each name in his final statement, saying, "I want these names to be remembered."
Johnson was found guilty of 7 counts of capital murder in 1993, with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia jury unanimously recommending seven death sentences.
Thursday's execution, 6 days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office, coincides with a new push from more than three dozen members of Congress for Biden's incoming administration to prioritize abolishing the death penalty in all jurisdictions.
While Biden has pledged to abolish the federal death penalty and to give incentives to states to stop seeking death sentences as a part of his criminal justice plan, 40 members of Congress want to make sure the practice ends on his first day in office.
As part of his final words, Johnson made mention of his last meal.
"The pizza and strawberry shake were wonderful, but I didn't get the jelly-filled donuts that I ordered," he said. "What's with that? This should be fixed."
Johnson becomes the 2nd condemned federal inmate to be put to death this year and the 15th overall since federal executions resumed in 2001.
Johnson becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,531st overall since the nations resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Source: CNN, Staff; Rick Halperin, January 15, 2021
US executes Virginia gang killer despite COVID-19 infection
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The U.S. government executed a drug trafficker Thursday for slaying seven people in a burst of violence in Virginia’s capital in 1992, with some witnesses in the death-chamber building applauding as the 52-year-old was pronounced dead.
Corey Johnson’s execution went ahead after his lawyers scrambled to stop it on grounds that the lethal injection of pentobarbital would cause him excruciating pain due to lung damage from his coronavirus infection last month.
He was the 12th inmate executed at the prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, since the Trump administration restarted federal executions following a 17-year hiatus. The last during the presidency of ardent death-penalty advocate Donald Trump was set for Friday.
Johnson, who his lawyers said was severely mentally disabled, was pronounced dead at 11:34 p.m.
When asked if he had any last words, Johnson appeared distracted, focusing on a room to his left designated for members of his family. Still glancing around, he responded, “No. I’m OK.”
Seconds later, he said softly while gazing intently at same room, “Love you.”
After the execution, his lawyers released Johnson’s last statement. In it, he said the pizza and strawberry shake he ate and drank before the execution “were wonderful” but he didn’t get the jelly-filled doughnuts he wanted. He added: “This should be fixed.”
And he apologized.
“I want to say that I am sorry for my crimes,” he said. “I wanted to say that to the families who were victimized by my actions.” He also said he wanted his victims’ names to be remembered.
As the lethal drug began flowing through IVs into his arms strapped to a cross-shaped gurney, Johnson lifted his his wrist and waved to someone in the room for his family. A low murmur emanated from the room in which someone seemed to be praying and offering words of reassurance to Johnson.
For two minutes, Johnson continued to try to speak. But suddenly, his eyelids drew down hard and his mouth fell agape. He moved only slightly after that. It took a little more than 20 minutes for him to die.
Reporters could not see into into the witness rooms reserved for his family and for relatives of his victims. But it was clear the clapping came from the latter as an official pronounced Johnson dead. Someone also could be heard whistling.
Johnson’s execution and Friday’s scheduled execution of Dustin Higgs are the last before next week’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who opposes the federal death penalty and has signaled he’ll end its use. Both inmates contracted COVID-19 and won temporary stays of execution this week for that reason, only for higher courts to vacate those stays.
Lawyers have previously argued the pentobarbital injections cause flash pulmonary edema, where fluid rapidly fills the lungs, sparking sensations akin to drowning. The new claim was that fluid would rush into the inmates’ COVID-damaged lungs immediately while they were still conscious.
But during Thursday’s execution, there weren’t outward signs Johnson ever experienced pain — though some medical experts say pentobarbital can have a paralyzing effect that masks pain inmates might be feeling as they die. Government experts dispute that.
Johnson was implicated with playing a role in one of the worst bursts of gang violence Richmond had ever seen, with 11 people killed in a 45-day period. He and two other members of the Newtowne gang were sentenced to death under a federal law that targets large-scale drug traffickers.
Johnson’s lawyers described a traumatic childhood in which he was physically abused by his drug-addicted mother and her boyfriends, abandoned at age 13, then shuffled between residential and institutional facilities until he aged out of the foster care system. They cited numerous childhood IQ tests discovered after he was sentenced that place him in the mentally disabled category. They say he could only read and write at an elementary school level.
In a statement, Johnson’s lawyers, Donald Salzman and Ronald Tabak, said the government executed a person “with an intellectual disability, in stark violation of the Constitution and federal law” and vehemently denied he had the mental capacity to be a so-called drug kingpin.
“We wish also to say that the fact Corey Johnson should never have been executed cannot diminish the pain and loss experienced by the families of the victims in this case,” the statement said. “We wish them peace and healing.”
Government filings spelled Johnson’s name “Cory,” but his lawyers say he spells it “Corey.”
Richard Benedict, who was Johnson’s special education teacher at a New York school for emotionally troubled kids, said Johnson was hyperactive, anxious and reading and writing at a second- or third-grade level when he was 16 and 17.
Prosecutors, however, said Johnson had not shown that he was mentally disabled.
“While rejecting that he has intellectual disabilities that preclude his death sentences, courts have repeatedly and correctly concluded that Johnson’s seven murders were planned to advance his drug trafficking and were not impulsive acts by someone incapable of making calculated judgments, and are therefore eligible for the death penalty,” prosecutors argued in court documents.
C.T. Woody Jr., the lead homicide detective on the case, said that during his interrogations of Johnson, he denied any involvement in the killings and said police were trying to frame him because of lies people were telling about him.
“It did not seem to me that he had any kind of mental problems at all except his viciousness and no respect for human life — none whatsoever,” Woody said.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard Vick Jr., one of the prosecutors in the case, said the violence committed by Johnson and his fellow gang members was unmatched at the time. One of the gang’s victims was stabbed 85 times and another was shot 16 times. Johnson was convicted of being the shooter in a triple slaying, and participating in four other capital murders, including shooting a rival drug dealer 15 times.
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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
