Four men too vicious to live

Supreme Court refuses to block upcoming federal executions

Nothing in the story explains why the cases involving these men were federal, in the first place.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to block the execution of four federal prison inmates who are scheduled to be put to death in July and August.

The executions would mark the first use of the death penalty on the federal level since 2003.

The justices rejected an appeal from four inmates who were convicted of killing children. 

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor noted that they would have blocked the executions from going forward.

. . . .

The activity at the high court came after Attorney General William Barr directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions. 

Three of the men had been scheduled to be put to death when Barr first announced the federal government would resume executions last year, ending an informal moratorium on federal capital punishment as the issue receded from the public domain.

. . . .

The inmates scheduled for execution are: 

Danny Lee, who was convicted in Arkansas of killing a family of three, including an 8-year-old; 

Wesley Ira Purkey, of Kansas, who raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl and killed an 80-year-old woman; 

Dustin Lee Honken, who killed five people in Iowa, including two children; 

and Keith Dwayne Nelson, who kidnapped a 10-year-old girl who was rollerblading in front of her Kansas home and raped her in a forest behind a church before strangling the young girl with a wire.

Three of the executions — for Lee, Purkley and Honken — are scheduled days apart beginning July 13. 

Nelson’s execution is scheduled for Aug. 28. 

The Justice Department said additional executions will be set at a later date.