The Justice Department has executed Dustin Lee Honken, 52, in Terre Haute, Ind., the third federal inmate put to death by the government this week. A coroner pronounced him dead by lethal injection at 4:36 p.m. ET Friday (article available here).
For his last words, he turned to the writings of a Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, reciting lines from the poem Heaven-Haven.
For the second time this week, a man was executed by lethal injection inside a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Wesley Ira Purkey was strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber. A prison official removed a mask from Purkey's face and asked him if he wanted to make a final statement. He leaned his head up slightly from the gurney and said: "I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer's family. I am deeply sorry."
Wesley Ira Purkey was scheduled for execution tonight (Wednesday, July 15, 2020) at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death on Tuesday (see previous post on circumstances surrounding Mr. Lee’s execution here). The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., did not rule on whether Purkey is competent but said the Court needs to evaluate the claim.
The following is a statement from Ruth Friedman, attorney for Daniel Lee:
The Justice Department has killed Daniel Lee, 47, marking the first federal execution since 2003, after a chaotic overnight series of divided court rulings that cleared the way for federal executions to resume for the first time in 17 years (access full article). Lee was scheduled to be executed Monday at 4 p.m. EDT. The time of death was 8:07 a.m. EDT.
In en banc news, the Fourth Circuit will reconsider its decision that it wasn't a "search" when law enforcement got a "geofence warrant" for cell-phone data from Google that placed the defendant with 150 meters of a bank and which led to his conviction for armed robbery. (The Training Division has some thoughts on all this too.)
A military judge on Sunday postponed a hearing to receive the guilty plea of and two other men and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks, so that prosecutors can seek again to nullify the plea deal (access full article).
The Iowa Supreme Court is being asked to consider, again, if state courts can bill poor defendants for their court-appointed lawyers, even when they're acquitted or the charges against them are dropped (access full article).
If the court takes up the case, State of Iowa v. Ronald Pagliai, it will be the second time in recent years that Iowa's highest court has ruled on the state's unusually aggressive practice of billing poor defendants for court-appointed attorneys.
A jury on Tuesday awarded $42 million to three former detainees of Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, holding Virginia-based military contractor CACI Premier Technology Inc. responsible for contributing to their torture and mistreatment two decades ago (access full article).
The three testified that they were subjected to beatings, sexual abuse, forced nudity and other cruel treatment at the prison.
President Joe Biden’s nominee to be only the second Black man appointed to a federal appeals court in the past decade was confirmed by the Senate, sending Embry Kidd, a US magistrate judge in Orlando, Florida, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (access full article).
The White House has prioritized demographic diversity in its judicial nominations and has almost doubled the number of Black women on the circuit courts.