Supreme Court Paves Way For Second Federal Execution This Week

Update: 9:25 a.m. EDT:

Wesley Purkey has been executed.

In his final statement, Purkey said he deeply regreted "the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer' family. I am deeply sorry. I deeply regret the pain I caused my daughter, who I love so very much.

"This sanitized murder really does not serve no purpose whatsoever."

Original story:

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-to-4 on Thursday morning to pave the way for the second federal execution this week.

While all four liberal justices dissented, the ruling came shortly after the court permitted the first federal execution since 2003 to move forward on Tuesday.

Specifically, the court lifted two separate injunctions which had prevented the execution of Wesley Purkey, 68, who was convicted in 2003 of raping and murdering Jennifer Long, a 16-year-old girl in Kansas City, Mo., in 1998. Purkey dismembered her with a chainsaw and burned Long’s body before dumping it into a septic pond.

That same year Purkey also killed 80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales in Kansas City, Kan., using a claw hammer.

Purkey is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind.

However, Purkey’s lawyers claimed their client had dementia and was unfit to be executed.

Recently, Purkey’s lawyers also said their client now suffers from advancing Alzheimer’s disease.

“He has long accepted responsibility for the crime that put him on death row,” lawyer Rebecca Woodman said. “But as his dementia has progressed, he no longer has a rational understanding of why the government plans to execute him.”

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 supported in her assertions by fellow liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

On Tuesday, Daniel Lewis Lee was executed in Terre Haute. He was convicted of killing an Arkansas family in the 1990s.