A Zen Buddhist priest filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against Attorney General William Barr and other officials seeking to delay one of four executions scheduled to begin this month, which would be the first use of the federal death penalty in 17 years.
The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Ropes & Gray LLP, is on behalf of Seigen Hartkemeyer, a Buddhist priest who has been ministering to Wesley Purkey, an Indiana man sentenced to death for murder and rape, for more of a decade.
Hartkemeyer believes he has a “religious obligation” to attend the execution of Purkey, which is scheduled for July 15, but at age 68 and with a history of lung ailments, according to the lawsuit, he is in a higher risk category. to develop the coronavirus.
Hartkemeyer’s attendance at Purkey’s execution “would pose a serious risk” to his health, according to the lawsuit. Correctional facilities have become hot spots for the coronavirus, leading to the early release of certain prisoners, as well as protests of complaints of deteriorating conditions.
At the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, where Purkey will be executed by lethal injection, there have been five known cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A 56-year-old prisoner with the coronavirus died in May, the office said.
The lawsuit argues that the execution of Purkey, as well as those of the others, which will take place in Terre Haute, will attract people and the media from across the country, require large teams to carry out the execution process and put witnesses in courtrooms. small observation points that do not allow adequate social distancing.
Hartkemeyer’s rights are being violated under the Federal Religious Liberty Restoration Act, according to the lawsuit.
“The Rev. Hartkemeyer is now forced to choose between abandoning his religious obligation to Mr. Purkey and facing an unacceptably high risk of exposure to COVID-19,” according to the lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.
Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, denounced the revival of executions during a pandemic as “appalling”.
“Asking hundreds of people across the country to go to Indiana right now to attend this execution is like asking them to find a burning building,” it said in a statement. “We have not had a federal execution in 17 years: there is absolutely no reason for the government to rush with such a reckless and dangerous plan.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
In December, the department asked the Supreme Court to allow the federal government to resume executions after a federal judge issued a court order regarding all four cases of scheduled execution, including Purkey’s.
The last execution by the federal government was in 2003. Since then, as several states have moved to abolish the death penalty, movement at the federal level has stopped, a combination of the lack of priority of previous administrations , concerns about failed executions and delays caused by extended appeals.
But the Trump administration is now pressing for capital punishment cases.
“We owe it to the victims of these horrible crimes, and to the families who were left behind, to carry out the sentence imposed by our justice system,” Barr said last month.
The first of four executions is scheduled for July 13. Purkey will die two days later. His lawyers have previously tried to stop his execution, saying that Purkey is not mentally competent to be executed because he has Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.
Purkey was convicted of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old Kansas girl in 1998 and the blunt death of an 80-year-old woman with polio.
