The US government has executed Corey Johnson, an intellectually impaired convicted murderer suffering from COVID-19, marking one of the final two federal executions planned in the last days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Johnson, 52, was convicted of murdering seven people in Virginia in 1992 as part of a drug-trafficking ring.
Some of his victims’ relatives could be heard clapping and cheering from a viewing room inside the US Department of Justice’s death chamber at its prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, after he was declared dead at 11.34pm on Thursday, witnesses said.
In a separate viewing for Johnson’s family, one of his brothers chanted “I love you, brother! I love you, brother!” over and over again, a witness said.
Johnson’s execution went ahead several hours after it was scheduled when the US Supreme Court rejected a petition by his lawyers saying he was too intellectually disabled to be legally executed.
It is the twelfth federal execution since Mr Trump, a Republican, resumed the punishment last year after a 17-year hiatus and amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Supreme Court also declined to reinstate an order from a lower court delaying the execution of Johnson and Dustin Higgs, scheduled to be executed on Friday, to allow them to recover from COVID-19 after they contracted the coronavirus in December.
Johnson’s lawyers said he could barely read or write and had an IQ within the 70-75 point threshold courts have used to determine “mental retardation,” which precludes execution under the Federal Death Penalty Act. He was entitled to a court hearing on his disability, they said.
“Tonight, the government executed Corey Johnson, a person with intellectual disability, in stark violation of the Constitution and federal law,” his lawyers said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the US District Court ordered the executions be delayed to allow the condemned men to heal, siding with medical experts who said their coronavirus-damaged lungs would result in inordinate suffering if they were to receive lethal injections.
This would breach the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual” punishments, the lawyers argued.
A split panel of judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned Chutkan’s stay by 2-1.
“The Eighth Amendment ‘does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death’,” said the opinion.
When asked if he had any last words, Johnson initially appeared surprised and distracted, according to reports by a journalist serving as a media witness.
“No, I’m OK,” he said, still glancing around. He then gazed at the room meant for his family and softly said, “Love you.”
