Wednesday, July 15, 2020
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A U.S. judge has halted the execution of a federal death row inmate whose lawyers argue suffers from dementia.
Wesley Ira Purkey was scheduled to be the second inmate executed by the government this week after a nearly 20-year hiatus.
A judge in Washington, D.C., imposed two injunctions today, and an appeals court panel upheld one of them tonight. But the Supreme Court was still to be heard from, and the execution still might proceed.
Purkey’s lawyers say he can no longer grasp why he’s slated to die. Purkey, of Lansing, Kansas, was convicted of the 1998 killing of a girl in Kansas City, Missouri.