Federal execution déjà vu: after SCOTUS votes 5-4 to vacate injunction, feds complete another morning lethal injection

As reported here earlier this week, the federal government completed the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee, which had been scheduled for Monday, around 8am on Tuesday morning after a divided  Supreme Court around 2am vacated lower court ruling that were blocking the execution.  It was déjà vu all over again today:  sometime not long after 2am this morning, the US Supreme Court issued this order vacating the injunction, with four Justices in dissent and Justices Breyer and Sotomayor writing up the basis for their disagreement.  This new AP article reports on the execution and some of the legal wrangling that preceded it:

The United States on Thursday carried out its second federal execution this week, killing by lethal injection a Kansas man whose lawyers contended he had dementia and was unfit to be executed.

Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Purkey was convicted of kidnapping and killing a 16-year-old girl, Jennifer Long, before dismembering, burning and dumping her body in a septic pond. He also was convicted in a state court in Kansas after using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who had polio....

As the lethal chemical was injected, Purkey took several deep breaths and blinked repeatedly, laying his head back down on the gurney. His time of death was 8:19 a.m. EDT. His spiritual adviser was in the room, wearing a face mask and a surgical mask and appeared to be praying, his gloved hands held together at the palms.

The Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to take place just hours before, ruling in a 5-4 decision. The four liberal justices dissented, like they did for the first case earlier this week. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “proceeding with Purkey’s execution now, despite the grave questions and factual findings regarding his mental competency, casts a shroud of constitutional doubt over the most irrevocable of injuries.” She was joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

It was the federal government’s second execution after a 17-year hiatus. Another man, Daniel Lewis Lee, was put to death Tuesday after his eleventh hour legal bids failed. Both executions were delayed into the day after they were scheduled as legal wrangling continued late into the night and into the next morning....

Purkey’s lawyers had argued his condition had deteriorated so severely that he didn’t understand why he was being executed. They said he was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental health conditions....

The Supreme Court also lifted a hold placed on other executions set for Friday and next month. Dustin Honken, a drug kingpin from Iowa convicted of killing five people in a scheme to silence former dealers, was scheduled for execution Friday.

We may see this pattern play out one more time this week, as I suspect that Honken still has some legal claims to press to try to block his execution tomorrow and that the Supreme Court will eventually turn away those claims so that his execution goes forward. DPIC has this webpage trying to track all the legal developments in all these cases, though it looks like they all are going to end the same way.

Some prior recent related posts:

• With executions looming, lots of news and notes about the federal death penalty 
• DC District Judge issues new stay, based on Eighth Amendment claims, to block this week's scheduled federal executions
• SCOTUS, by 5-4 vote, vacates new injunction that had been blocking scheduled federal executions ... UPDATE: execution of Daniel Lewis Lee now completed
• DC District Judge blocks today's scheduled federal execution based on Ford claim of incompetency

UPDATE: Over at SCOTUSblog here, Amy Howe has an extended post with more details on the litigation and rulings leading up to Purkey's execution this morning under the headline "Justices allow second federal execution to proceed (updated)."