<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/7/1564080385902.png" alt="Wesley Purkey, from Kansas, one of three federal inmates scheduled to be put to death this week- photo KDOC" />
 <figcaption>Wesley Purkey, from Kansas, one of three federal inmates scheduled to be put to death this week- photo KDOC</figcaption>
 </figure>TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The United States on Thursday carried out its second federal execution this week, killing by lethal injection a Kansas man whose lawyers contended he had dementia and was unfit to be executed.Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Purkey was convicted of kidnapping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering, burning and dumping her body in a septic pond. He also was convicted in a state court in Kansas after using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who had polio.Purkey expressed remorse right before he was executed.“I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer’s family,” he said. “I am deeply sorry. I deeply regret the pain I caused to my daughter, who I love so very much. This sanitized murder really does not serve no purpose whatsoever.”His time of death was 8:19 a.m. EDT.The Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to take place just hours before, ruling in a 5-4 decision. The four liberal justices dissented, like they did for the first case earlier this week.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 joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.It was the federal government’s second execution after a 17-year hiatus. Another man,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/638826b00bba1b389756126e4cfae97a">Daniel Lewis Lee</a>, was put to death Tuesday after his eleventh hour legal bids failed.Both executions were delayed into the day after they were scheduled as legal wrangling continued late into the night and into the next morning.The Justice Department has been questioned for holding the executions in the middle of the worsening&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak">coronavirus pandemic</a>, prompting&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/1f1af3ed977d5ee94c6b2d9cc6a65bbb">lawsuits over fears those who would travel to the prison could become infected</a>. The decision to resume executions after nearly two decades was criticized as a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/c9e7b0c522b3be790b0ad3121bf96b06">dangerously political move</a>&nbsp;in an election year, forcing an issue that is not high on the list of American priorities considering&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/cddec060d38eacbb708a47120d34af51">the 11% unemployment rate</a>&nbsp;and the pandemic.Purkey’s lawyers had argued his condition had deteriorated so severely that he didn’t understand why he was being executed. They said he was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental health conditions.<a href="https://apnews.com/44465354fd8219a0bc2fec0962c526ec">The issue of Purkey’s mental health</a>&nbsp;arose in the run-up to his 2003 trial and when, after the verdict, jurors had to decide whether he should be put to death in the killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Long in Kansas City, Missouri. Prosecutors said he raped and stabbed her, dismembered her with a chainsaw, burned her and dumped her ashes 200 miles (320 kilometers) away in a septic pond in Kansas. Purkey was separately convicted and sentenced to life in the beating death of 80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales, of Kansas City, Kansas.Purkey had a long history of childhood trauma, was sexually abused by family members and a Catholic priest and was beaten by other family members, said Liz Vartkessian, a mitigation specialist who worked with Purkey’s legal team and visited him dozens of times in the last five years.“His case is replete with instances where he has expressed a deep remorse,” she said in an interview earlier this month.But recently, Purkey’s mental health had seriously deteriorated to the point he didn’t have the stamina for long visits with his legal team and often forgot key facts and dates, she said.Correction officers had to help him write down a schedule to remember his visits with his lawyers, she said.He also had a long history of paranoia and delusions and believed the Justice Department was moving forward with his execution because of many complaints and lawsuits he brought in prison, even though most had failed, Vartkessian said.The Supreme Court also lifted a hold placed on other executions set for Friday and next month.<a href="https://apnews.com/4cc4065b575e7b051a1adedba2ab4ca4">Dustin Honken</a>, a drug kingpin from Iowa convicted of killing five people in a scheme to silence former dealers, was scheduled for execution Friday.---------TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The Supreme Court early Thursday cleared the way for a second federal execution this week. The vote to allow the execution of Wesley Ira Purkey to go forward was 5-4, with the court's four liberal members dissenting.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 joined by fellow liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.But a lower court put an emergency hold on the execution for one hour as it weighed issues in the case, further delaying what initially had been slated for Wednesday evening at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute,&nbsp;Indiana.Purkey was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering, burning and then dumping her body in a septic pond. He also was convicted in a state court in&nbsp;Kansas&nbsp;after using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio.On Tuesday, Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death at the facility after his eleventh hour legal bids failed. It was the first federal execution after a 17-year hiatus.Lawyers for the 68-year-old Purkey, of Kansas, argued that he has dementia and is unfit to be executed. They said his condition has deteriorated so severely that he didn’t understand why he was being executed. They also said that if Purkey’s execution did not take place Wednesday, the government would need to set a new date. But government lawyers said there was no obstacle to going through with the execution Thursday if the Supreme Court lifted the injunctions.The issue of Purkey’s mental health arose in the run-up to his 2003 trial and when, after the verdict, jurors had to decide whether he should be put to death in the killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Long in Kansas City,&nbsp;Missouri. Prosecutors said he raped and stabbed her, dismembered her with a chainsaw, burned her and dumped her ashes 200 miles (320 kilometers) away in a septic pond in Kansas. Purkey was separately convicted and sentenced to life in the beating death of 80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales, of Kansas City, Kansas, who suffered from polio.___TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday halted the execution of a man, said to be suffering from dementia, who had been 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&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/638826b00bba1b389756126e4cfae97a">Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death</a>&nbsp;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 in the hours ahead of Purkey’s scheduled execution, similar to what happened before the government executed Lee following a ruling from the Supreme Court. One of the injunctions imposed Wednesday halts not only Purkey’s execution, but another scheduled for Friday and one in August.Lee, convicted of killing an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation, was the first of four condemned men scheduled to die in July and August despite&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak">the coronavirus pandemic</a>&nbsp;raging inside and outside prisons.This competency issue is a very strong issue on paper,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “The Supreme Court has halted executions on this issue in the past. At a minimum, the question of whether Purkey dies is going to go down to the last minute.”Judge Chutkan didn’t rule on whether Purkey was competent but said the court needed to evaluate the claim. She said there was no question he’d suffer “irreparable harm” if he was put to death before his claims could be evaluated.Lee’s execution had gone forward a day late. It was scheduled for Monday afternoon, but the Supreme Court only gave the green light in a 5-4 ruling early Tuesday.Repeatedly on Wednesday, a federal judge also denied a request from Dustin Lee Honkin, an Iowa drug kingpin scheduled to be executed on Friday, to delay his execution. The judge said he would not delay Honken’s execution date due to the coronavirus pandemic and said the Bureau of Prisons was in the best position to weigh the health risks.The issue of Purkey’s mental health arose in the runup to his 2003 trial and when, after the verdict, jurors had to decide whether he should be put to death in the killing of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/bb53ffa7c8564bdd9e6f0f130e8ef21b">16-year-old Jennifer Long</a>&nbsp;in Kansas City, Missouri. Prosecutors said he raped and stabbed her, dismembered her with a chainsaw, burned the body and dumped her ashes in a pond in Kansas. Purkey was separately convicted and sentenced to life in the beating death of 80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales, of Kansas City, Kansas.But the legal questions of whether he was mentally fit to stand trial or to be sentenced to die are different from the question of whether he’s mentally fit enough now to be put to death. Purkey’s lawyers argue he clearly isn’t,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/a494e22c8a4449118f7ee60963804f92">saying in recent filings he suffers from advancing Alzheimer’s disease</a>.“He has long accepted responsibility for the crime that put him on death row,” one of this lawyers, Rebecca Woodman, said. “But as his dementia has progressed, he no longer has a rational understanding of why the government plans to execute him.”Purkey believes his planned execution is part of a conspiracy involving his attorneys, Woodman said. In other filings, they describe delusions that people were spraying poison into his room and that drug dealers implanted a device in his chest meant to kill him.While various legal issues in Purkey’s case have been hashed, rehashed and settled by courts over nearly two decades, “competency is something that is always in flux,” so the issue of mental fitness for execution can only be addressed once a date is set, according to Dunham, who teaches law school courses on capital punishment.In a landmark 1986 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the Constitution prohibits executing someone who lacks a reasonable understanding of why he’s being executed. It involved the case of Alvin Ford, who was convicted of murder but whose mental health deteriorated behind bars to the point, according to his lawyer, he believed he was pope.“I could say I was Napoleon,” Dunham said. “But if I say I understand that Napoleon was sentenced to death for a crime and is being executed for it — that could allow the execution to go ahead.”Purkey’s mental issues go beyond Alzheimer’s, his lawyers have said. They say he was subject to sexual and mental abuse as a child and, at 14, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression and psychosis.Last week, three mental health organizations urged U.S. Attorney William Barr to commute Purkey’s sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole. The National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America and the Treatment Advocacy Center said executing mentally ailing people like Purkey “constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and does not comport with ‘evolving standards of decency.’”Glenda Lamont, the mother of the slain teenager, told The Kansas City Star last year she planned to attend Purkey’s execution.“I don’t want to say that I’m happy,” Lamont said. “At the same time, he is a crazy madman that doesn’t deserve, in my opinion, to be breathing anymore.”President Donald Trump’s campaign touted the Lee execution in an email blast, saying the president “Ensured Total Justice for the Victims of an Evil Killer” and demanded his political opponent Joe Biden explain why he now opposes capital punishment.There was an unofficial moratorium on federal executions after the Obama administration&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/1d3518af20dc4849804c21e58b46ae15">ordered a review in 2014&nbsp;</a>following a botched execution in Oklahoma.___

Kansas child killer apologizes just before his execution