Daniel Lewis Lee had been scheduled to receive a lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital
TERRE HAUTE: The Trump administration was moving ahead early Tuesday with the execution of the first federal prison inmate in 17 years after a divided Supreme Court reversed lower courts and ruled federal executions could proceed.
Daniel Lewis Lee had been scheduled to receive a lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital at 4 p.m. EDT Monday. But a court order preventing Lee’s execution, issued Monday morning by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, remained in place.
A federal appeals court in Washington refused the administration’s plea to step in, before the Supreme Court acted by a 5-4 vote. Still, Lee’s lawyers said the execution could not go forward after midnight under federal regulations.
With conservatives in the majority, the court said in an unsigned opinion that the prisoners’ “executions may proceed as planned.” The four liberal justices dissented.
Two more executions are scheduled this week, Wesley Ira Purkey on Wednesday and Dustin Lee Honken on Friday.
A fourth man, Keith Dwayne Nelson, is scheduled to be executed in August.
The Bureau of Prisons had continued with preparations for Lee’s execution even as lower courts paused the proceedings.
Lee, of Yukon, Okalhoma, has had access to social visitors, has visited with his spiritual adviser and has been allow