A drug dealer sentenced to death for his ties to seven murders in Virginia in 1992 was executed Thursday night in Indiana after a U.S. Supreme Court decision on his diagnosis of coronavirus paved the way for his death, according to with reports.
“I’m fine. I’m at peace,” said Corey Johnson, 52, before being sentenced to death, according to The Associated Press.
“I’m fine. I’m at peace.”
Johnson was tied to a stretcher and injected with lethal doses of pentobarbital, according to Reuters.
Before his final comments, Johnson said he was “sorry for my crimes”, that “he was not the same man as me” and wanted the murder victims to be remembered.
Death Row’s last words
He also thanked his minister and lawyer, the AP reported, and said his final pizza meal and strawberry milkshake was “wonderful”, but added that he did not receive the “jam-filled donuts” he wanted.
Early Thursday night, the United States Supreme Court cleared the way for Johnson’s execution – one of the last two executions planned by the Trump administration.
The federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, was spotted on August 28, 2020. (Associated Press) “/>
The federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, was spotted on August 28, 2020. (Associated Press)
The court rejected a lower court’s decision that executions should be postponed because the two prisoners on death row suffered from the coronavirus.
The other convict, Dustin Higgs, was scheduled to be executed on Friday night following the court’s decision, Reuters reported.
On Tuesday, US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Johnson and Higgs’ executions to be postponed until at least March 16 to allow the two men to recover from the coronavirus.
The judge ruled that the virus could cause excessive suffering during his executions because of his coronavirus-damaged lungs, according to Reuters.
But in a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit revoked Chutkan’s stay, declaring that death row inmates had no guarantee of “a painless death”.
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Johnson was convicted of the murder of seven people in Virginia in 1992 in connection with an anti-drug operation. His lawyers argued that he should have been spared execution because of an intellectual disability, but the United States Circuit’s 4th Circuit Appeals Court and the Supreme Court rejected that argument, Reuters reported.
Higgs was convicted of overseeing the kidnapping and murder of three women in Maryland in 1996, but did not kill anyone, prompting his lawyers to argue that he should be spared execution.
The Trump administration resumed federal executions last year after a 17-year hiatus, but the next Biden government must seek to abolish the death penalty, Reuters reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.