Media room: The Training Center at the Federal Correctional Complex along Indiana 63 on Friday. Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza
Media room: The Training Center at the Federal Correctional Complex along Indiana 63 on Friday. Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza
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The condemned

These three federal inmates were scheduled to be executed next week at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, which is home to the federal prison system death row and the federal system’s last working execution chamber.

Monday: Danny Lee (Daniel Lewis Lee) was convicted in Arkansas in the killing a family of three, including an 8-year-old. The robbery and murders were part of a plot to obtain guns and money to establish a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest. A U.S. district court in Indianapolis has indefinitely halted his execution because of issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wednesday: Wesley Ira Purkey was convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering, burning and then dumping the teen’s body in a septic pond. Prosecutors said he was also convicted in a state court in Kansas after using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio.

Friday: Dustin Lee Honken was convicted in 2004 in connection with the killings of five people in Iowa as part of a plan to thwart a federal investigation into his drug operation. The victims included two men who became informants and were going to testify against him, the girlfriend of one of the informants and her two young daughters, ages six and 10.
As last-minute legal actions continue, so do preparations for the execution of three federal inmates next week at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute.

The next execution at Terre Haute — home of the federal system’s death row and last working execution chamber — will be the first in the federal system since 2003.

Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, had an execution time set for 4 p.m. Monday, but a ruling by U.S. Chief District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson in Indianapolis put that on hold. The U.S. Department of Justice is appealing that hold.

Two additional executions are scheduled next week. At this time, they are not affected by the judge’s order.

Wesley Ira Purkey, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Dustin Lee Honken, 52, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 4 p.m. Friday.

A fourth Death Row inmate – 45-year-old Keith Dwayne Nelson – is scheduled to die by lethal injection Aug. 28.

Vigo County Coroner Dr. Susan Amos said she’ll be at the federal prison next week to sign a death certificate for each person executed by lethal injection next week — although federal Bureau of Prisons’ protocols do not require an autopsy.

The coroner said she will not witness the execution but will conduct a visual examination of each executed person.

“The external examination is to make sure there was no mistreatment and the person was not tortured in the process,” Amos said.

Starting with the 2001 execution of Oklahoma City bomber McVeigh, she said, the execution protocol was changed to eliminate the need for an autopsy since the manner and cause of death is already known.

McVeigh also objected to an autopsy on his corpse, as did the two other people executed in 2001 and 2003 at the federal prison.

In fact, Amos said the death certificate for the executed person is fast-tracked. The Bureau of Prisons maintains custody of the body, and it has arranged for embalming or cremation as desired by the person.

In most instances, she said, the body will be transported across state lines to be returned to family, so the death certificate is fast-tracked to allow for that.

Law enforcement prepares

Preparations for next week’s executions have included meetings with state and local law enforcement agencies to plan for traffic control and access to the prison grounds. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons also has made arrangements with city officials to use a portion of Voorhees Park as a collection point for protesters.

Indiana State Police Sgt. Matt Ames of the Putnamville post said ISP is providing perimeter security along Indiana 63 and in other areas on the days of the execution.

“Our primary concern is a safe environment for the protesters and the community,” Ames said.

Vigo County Sheriff John Plasse and Terre Haute Police Chief Shawn Keen also have been meeting with Bureau of Prison officials regularly to coordinate security.

Keen said some city officers will be assigned to Voorhees Park to assist with screening of pro-death penalty demonstrators who will be bused to prison grounds.

Sheriff deputies will assist at the Miss Softball America grounds on Jones Road, where anti-death penalty demonstrators will be screened and bused to prison grounds.

The designated areas for protesters are in separate locations on federal grounds.

Officers from state, county and local agencies will help with closing Indiana 63 from Lombardi Drive at the southern prison border north to Honey Creek Drive.

Chief Keen said he has received no comments or concerns from the public about the executions occurring at the prison.

A protest being organized along U.S. 41 at Springhill Drive falls under county police jurisdiction, and the Terre Haute Fire Department is providing an ambulance with two medics on prison grounds.

Chief Jeff Fisher said the medic team will respond to any medical incidents involving demonstrators on the grounds, but THFD will not be providing on-site crews at other protest sites unless dispatched to handle a specific incident.

Opponents organize off-site

Terre Haute Death Penalty Resistance — which includes national and local activists — urges death penalty opponents to gather at 3 p.m. at the intersection of Springhill drive and U.S 41.

The group plans to express itself in view of the traffic on U.S. 41 on execution days and, at 4 p.m., will toll a bell as the execution is expected to commence. The group does encourage protesters to social distance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Concerns about the coronavirus are expected to keep some demonstrators away.

For instance, Kelsey Kauffman, an advocate for incarcerated people at state and federal facilities, said she does not plan to be in Terre Haute to demonstrate.

In 2014 to 2015, Kauffman led a national campaign to get the American Pharmacists Association to end participation in executions by lethal injection. The organization voted to do so in March 2015.

Kauffman opposed the 2001 execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, saying she believes “violence begets violence, that revenge is not justice, and that state-sanctioned killing makes us all participants in taking life.”

Kauffman said she also opposes the death penalty because of what it does to people whose job it is to carry out executions.

“Although no one is forced to participate, in many cases staff suffer emotionally long-term,” Kauffman said.

Sylvester Edwards, president of the Terre Haute Branch of NAACP, echoed that opinion due to a discussion he had last year with a former executioner who spoke about his realization he was committing government-sanctioned homicide.

“When he saw the death certificate said the manner of death was homicide, he refused to do it again,” Edwards said. “Wrong is wrong, to take a life.”
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