A drug dealer sentenced to death in 1992 for his links to seven murders in Virginia was executed in Indiana on Thursday night after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on his coronavirus diagnosis paved the way for his death, according to reports.
“I’m OK. I’m at peace,” Corey Johnson, 52, told The Associated Press before being killed.
“I’m fine. I’m calm.”
Johnson was tied to a gurney and injected with lethal doses of pentobarbital, according to Reuters.
Before his final comment, Johnson said he was ‘sorry for my crimes’, that he ‘was not the same man I was’, and that the victims killed should be remembered.
LAST WORDS OF DEATH PRISONERS
The AP also thanked his minister and lawyer, saying his last meal of pizza and a strawberry milkshake was ‘wonderful’, but added that he did not get the ‘jelly-filled donuts’ he wanted.
Earlier Thursday night, the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the execution of Johnson – one of the last two executions planned by the Trump administration.
The federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Ind., Will be seen on August 28, 2020. (Associated Press) “/>
The federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Ind., Will be seen on August 28, 2020. (Associated Press)
The Supreme Court rejected the lower court’s ruling that the executions should be delayed because the two prisoners were dying from the coronavirus.
The other convict, Dustin Higgs, was to be executed on Friday night after the court ruling, Reuters reported.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered that the execution of Johnson and Higgs be postponed until at least March 16 to give both men time to recover from the coronavirus.
According to Reuters, the judge ruled that the virus could cause excessive suffering during their execution due to their coronavirus-damaged lungs.
But in a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned Chutkan’s stay, declaring that prisoners who died were not guaranteed a painless death.
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Johnson was convicted in 1992 of killing seven people in Virginia in connection with a drug operation. His lawyers argued that he should have been spared execution due to a mental defect, but the Fourth U.S. Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court both rejected the argument, Reuters reported.
Higgs was convicted in 1996 of supervising the kidnapping and murder of three women in Maryland, but did not kill anyone himself, who asked his lawyers to plead that he should be executed.
The Trump administration resumed federal executions last year after a 17-year hiatus, but the incoming Biden government is expected to continue abolishing the death penalty, Reuters reported.
Associated Press contributed to this story.