2nd federal execution halted over questions of man's mental fitness

A federal execution scheduled for this week — only the second in 17 years — has been halted over questions of the man's mental fitness.

Wesley Ira Purkey, convicted of kidnapping and killing a 16-year-old in 1998, was set to be executed this week. But U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington, D.C, halted the execution on Wednesday with two injunctions questioning Purkey's fitness to be executed, The Associated Press reports.

Purkey's lawyers say while "he has long accepted responsibility for the crime that put him on death row," his dementia has advanced to the point that "he no longer has a rational understanding of why the government plans to execute him." He believes his lawyers are out to kill him and suffers other delusions, the attorneys say. They couldn't raise this issue earlier because a date for Purkey's execution was only set last year, they added. The Justice Department quickly appealed both of Chutkan's injunctions, though another stay on Purkey's execution was already in place from a circuit court.

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This "early morning legal wrangling" looks similar to what happened before the Monday execution of Daniel Lewis Lee at the same Indiana prison where Purkey is set to be executed, AP writes. Lee's lawyer's contended he had the right to dispute the method of his execution, but the Supreme Court let the execution proceed. Lee's death was the first federal execution in 17 years.