Death Penalty News

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday halted the execution of a man, said to be suffering from dementia, who was set to die by lethal injection in the federal government’s second execution this week after a 17-year hiatus. Wesley Ira Purkey, convicted of a gruesome 1998 kidnapping and killing, was scheduled for execution Wednesday night at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death Tuesday after his eleventh-hour legal bids failed. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., imposed two injunctions prohibiting the federal Bureau of Prisons from moving forward with Purkey’s execution. The Justice Department immediately appealed in both cases. A separate temporary stay was already in place from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. The legal wrangling suggested a volley of litigation would continue into the evening, similar to what happened before the government executed Lee following a ruling from ...

The second federal execution scheduled for this week has been halted by a federal judge out of Washington, DC. Wesley Ira Purkey was scheduled to be executed at 4 p.m. ET Wednesday, but US District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued an injunction prohibiting the federal Bureau of Prisons from going forward with Purkey's scheduled execution.  Chutkan noted that Purkey suffers from progressive dementia, schizophrenia and severe mental illness, but did not rule on whether Purkey is competent, and ordered the court to further evaluate these claims.  The Justice Department filed an immediate appeal.  A separate temporary stay on Purkey's execution was already in place by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Purkey was sentenced to death in January 2004 after he was convicted in federal court for the interstate kidnapping and killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Long in 1998.  Last week, three mental health organizations sent a letter to US Attorney Genera...

The federal government is set to carry out its first execution in 17 years on July 13. Robert Dunham, the executive director of the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center, examines research that shows federal death-row prisoners have a high rate of significant impairments and that there is disproportionate racial bias in death penalty usage. The federal government has scheduled four executions for July and August in an effort to restart executions after a nearly 17-year hiatus. This move is out of step with and in stark contrast to the nation’s 25-year trend away from executions. Today, 22 states and the District of Columbia no longer allow the death penalty. Another 12 states haven’t carried out an execution in more than a decade. More notable, however, is what the non-partisan Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), where I am executive director, has found by taking a close look at the ever-shrinking number of individuals who continue to face execution in the U.S.,...

Next week, Wesley Ira Purkey is scheduled to be put to death at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, when the federal government resumes executions after a 17-year hiatus. Purkey was found guilty and sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri for the 1998 murder of a 16-year-old girl. On July 2, the American Civil Liberty Union’s Capital Punishment Project filed suit seeking to stop his execution. The suit claims that proceeding with it would deprive Purkey of religious liberty since his long-time Zen Buddhist spiritual advisor would not be able to be present. It notes that both the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress in 1993 and the Federal Bureau of Prison’s own regulations protect the right of federal prisoners, including those on death row, to consult with religious advisors of their own choosing. The ACLU suit was filed on behalf of Purkey’s advisor Dale Hartkemeyer, who goes by the religious name Seigen. Se...

On July 15, the federal government plans to execute Wesley Purkey, a 68-year-old man with multiple brain disorders, including Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia.  The law is clear. Under the Constitution, an execution can only be carried out when the prisoner understands why he is being executed.  Mr. Purkey believes his death is punishment, not for his crime, but for his frequent complaints against prison officials over prison conditions. In a lawsuit filed last November, Mr. Purkey's attorneys point to evidence of decades of delusional behavior and rapidly progressing dementia. An expert who examined Mr. Purkey concluded that his dementia and mental illness have progressed to the point that he is incapable of rationally understanding the reason for his execution. Though that is what the law requires, the Government is rushing forward with his execution, while withholding critical medical records and without giving the courts time to hold a hearing. Institut...