TERRE HAUTE, Indiana – The United States government executed a drug dealer on Thursday for his involvement in a series of murders in the Virginia capital in 1992, despite claims by his lawyers that the lethal injection would cause terrible pain due to to lung damage from your recent Covid 19 infection.
Corey Johnson, 52, was the 12th inmate sentenced to death at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, since the Trump administration resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus.
He was declared dead at 23:34
Johnson’s execution and Dustin Higgs’s scheduled execution on Friday are the last before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who opposes the federal death penalty and has signaled that he will end its use. Both prisoners hired Covid-19 and won temporary suspensions of execution this week for that reason, just so that the higher courts would allow lethal injections to continue.
Lawyers had previously argued that lethal pentobarbital injections caused instantaneous pulmonary edema, where the fluid quickly fills the lungs, creating drowning-like sensations. The new claim was that the fluid would immediately enter the lungs damaged by the inmates’ Covid while they were still conscious.
Johnson was implicated in one of the worst outbreaks of gang violence Richmond has ever seen, with 11 people killed in a 45-day period. He and two other members of the Newtowne gang were sentenced to death under a federal law that targets large-scale drug traffickers.
In their clemency petition, Johnson’s lawyers asked President Donald Trump to commute his death sentence to life in prison. They described a traumatic childhood in which he was physically abused by his drug addicted mother and boyfriends, abandoned at age 13, and then moved between residential and institutional facilities until he aged outside the welfare system. They cited several childhood IQ tests discovered after he was sentenced, which put him in the mentally disabled category and say tests during his time in prison show that he can only read and write in elementary school.
In a final statement, Johnson said he “regretted my crimes” and said he wanted the victims to be remembered. He said the pizza and strawberry milkshake he ate and drank before the run “were wonderful,” but he didn’t get the donuts he wanted. He also thanked his minister and lawyer.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I am in peace.”
In a statement, Johnson’s lawyers said the government executed a person “with intellectual disabilities, in total violation of the constitution and federal law” and vehemently denied that he had the mental capacity to be the so-called drug kingpin.
“The government’s arbitrary rush to execute Mr. Johnson, who was categorically ineligible for execution due to his significant deficiencies, was based on procedural technicalities, and not on any serious dispute that he was intellectually disabled,” said lawyers Donald Salzman and Ronald Tabak.
Government documents spell Johnson’s name as “Cory”, but his lawyers say he writes “Corey”.
Richard Benedict, who was Johnson’s special education teacher at a New York school for children with emotional problems, said Johnson was hyperactive, anxious and read and wrote in the second or third grade when he was 16 and 17.
“I had to ask someone to take him to the bathroom because he just couldn’t get back to the classroom,” said Benedict.
Prosecutors, however, said Johnson did not demonstrate that he was mentally disabled.
“While rejecting that he has an intellectual disability that prevents his death sentences, the courts have repeatedly and correctly concluded that Johnson’s seven murders were designed to promote his drug trafficking and were not impulsive acts by someone unable to make calculated judgments and, therefore, they are eligible for the death penalty, ”argue prosecutors in court documents.
A defense psychologist testified during the trial that Johnson’s IQ was measured at 77, above the score limit of 75, then needed to label someone as mentally disabled. Johnson’s appellate lawyers say the psychologist was not an expert on intellectual disabilities and trusted standards that are now out of date.
CT Woody Jr., the lead homicide detective in the case, said that during Johnson’s interrogations, he denied any involvement in the murders and said the police were trying to frame him because of lies that people were telling him about.
“I didn’t think he had any kind of mental problem, except his meanness and no respect for human life – none at all,” said Woody.
Former deputy attorney general Howard Vick Jr., one of the prosecutors in the case, said the violence committed by Johnson and his gangmates was unparalleled at the time. One of the gang’s victims was stabbed 85 times and another was shot 16 times. Johnson was convicted of being the sniper in a triple murder and of having participated in four other capital murders, including shooting a rival drug dealer 15 times.
“The atrocity of the crimes, the total lack of meaning of the crimes, the crimes themselves justified the search for the death penalty in this case,” said Vick.
In his clemency petition, Johnson’s lawyers said he repeatedly expressed “sincere remorse” for his crimes.
“I am sorry for the large number of people who are dead, you know, and there are many things about us, and I feel that we are not angels,” he said during his sentencing hearing. He also spoke to a group of students attending the court that day and urged them not to commit crimes or to make the mistakes he made in his life.