Trump Administration Executes Third Prisoner in One Week

The U.S. Justice Department carried out its third execution in a week on Friday, matching the total number of federal prisoners previously put to death this century.

Dustin Honken, convicted of five killings, including two young children, was executed by lethal injection at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., where Daniel Lee and Wesley Purkey were also executed earlier this week.

They were the first federal inmates executed in 17 years, following Attorney General William Barr’s announcement last summer that the government would resume the practice.

The Justice Department was met with a series of legal actions and lower court injunctions that were overturned by the Supreme Court this week in a pair of middle-of-the-night 5-4 orders in Lee’s and Purkey’s cases, clearing way for their executions. Honken was executed on schedule starting at 4 p.m. and pronounced dead at 4:36.

A fourth inmate, Keith Nelson, is scheduled for execution next month. All four men were convicted of killing children.