Wesley Ira Purkey was scheduled to be executed at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, but United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a court order prohibiting the Federal Bureau of Prisons from continuing Purkey’s scheduled execution. Chutkan noted that Purkey suffers from progressive dementia, schizophrenia, and severe mental illness, but did not rule on whether Purkey is competent and ordered the court to further evaluate these claims.
Purkey was sentenced to death in January 2004 after being sentenced in federal court for the kidnapping and interstate murder of Jennifer Long, 16, in 1998.
The Justice Department filed an immediate appeal.
Purkey’s attorney, Rebecca Woodman, said he is “a 68-year-old man with severe brain damage and mental illness suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.”
“Although he has long accepted responsibility for his crime, he no longer has a rational understanding of why the government plans to execute him,” Woodman said Wednesday. “By suspending Wes’s execution, the court action points to the importance of allowing him to present the extensive medical evidence available that demonstrates his incompetence to be executed.”
The Justice Department is asking for a quick resolution on appeal, arguing that the Federal Bureau of Prisons will suffer damage if the execution is postponed.
The last-minute legal disputes are similar to the 11-hour legal offers related to Daniel Lewis Lee, who was finally executed Tuesday morning in the first federal execution since 2003.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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