TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A Kansas girl’s killer Friday became the fifth federal inmate put to death this year, an execution that went forward only after a higher court tossed a ruling that would have required the government to get a prescription for the drug used to kill him.
Questions about whether the drug pentobarbital causes pain prior to death had been a focus of appeals for Keith Nelson, 45, the second inmate executed this week in the Trump administration’s resumption of federal executions this summer after a 17-year hiatus.
Nelson was pronounced dead inside the execution chamber at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, at 4:32 p.m. EDT, about nine minutes after the execution began.
When a prison official standing over him asked if he had any last words, Nelson didn't utter a word, grunt or even nod his head. After the official waited for about 15 seconds, his eyes fixed on Nelson waiting in vain for an answer, he turned away and began the execution procedure.
Nelson, whose face was entirely obscured behind a medical mask and a blue sheet across his body, stayed still as the lethal drug pentobarbital was delivered, which his attorneys made as the focus of their last-minute appeals. None of his limbs twitched or quivered, but after about a minute his chest and midsection began to heave and shutter involuntarily.
Nelson was convicted of grabbing 10-year-old Pamela Butler off the street and throwing her into his truck in broad daylight on Oct. 12, 1999, as part of a plan to find a female to kidnap, torture, rape and kill because he expected to go back to prison anyway.
The girl had been returning to her Kansas City, Kansas, home on inline skates after buying cookies. As he drove off with her, he made a rude gesture to her sister, who saw the attack and screamed. He later raped the fifth-grader and strangled her with a wire.
Nelson's attorneys said they had come to know him as someone other than a killer, that they “saw his humanity, his compassion, and his sense of humor.”
“The execution of Keith Nelson did not make the world a safer place," the lawyers, Dale Baich and Jen Moreno, said in a statement. “Keith’s death sentence was the result of a proceeding that denied him constitutionally guaranteed protections and reveals another deep flaw in the federal death penalty system.”
Cherri West, the mother of the young girl who Nelson killed, said his death had brought her some peace and hoped it would also bring peace to her daughter's soul.
Wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with her daughter Pamela's photo and angel wings emanating from behind it, West said she had no remorse for him and didn't expect he would show any for her family either. She recalled how Nelson had cursed at her and other family members during hearings in his case, adding that she thought he might curse at them again before being put to death,
“I wasn’t expecting him to say anything because he never had no remorse," she said.
Nelson’s spiritual adviser, Sister Barbara Battista, stood inside the death chamber as Nelson was executed. She spoke to him regularly since last month, most recently on Wednesday, saying he sounded more subdued than usual but not frightened.
“His parting words were … ‘I don’t want to see you on Friday but I probably will,’” she said in an interview before the execution. “He would rather be alive after Friday. But he is facing the reality.”
A flurry of filings by Nelson's legal team over several weeks zeroed in on pentobarbital, which depresses the central nervous system and, in high doses, eventually stops the heart.
In one filing in early August, Nelson's attorneys cited an unofficial autopsy on one inmate executed last month, William Purkey, saying it indicated evidence of pulmonary edema in which the lungs fill with fluid and causes a painful sensation akin to drowning.
In her now-overturned ruling, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan halted Nelson's execution early Thursday, saying laws regulating drugs require the prescriptions, even for executions.
Within hours a panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out Chutkan's order with little explanation.
In a 2018 ruling, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Nelson showed no remorse during a sentencing hearing statement and instead “blistered the district court and the victim’s family with a profanity laden tirade.”
With the execution Wednesday of Lezmond Mitchell — the only Native American on federal death row — the federal government under President Donald Trump registered more executions in 2020 than it had in the previous 56 years combined.
The executions of Nelson and Mitchell were carried out the same week as the Republican National Convention, where many Trump supporters sought to portray him as a law-and-order candidate.
Nelson’s current attorneys said Nelson's lawyers during the 2001 penalty phase of his case should have emphasized mitigating evidence, including that Nelson suffered brain damage as a newborn and was abused as a child. During arguments, prosecutors pointed to Nelson’s twin brother, saying he grew up in similarly difficult circumstances but had a good job and had done well.
The federal government has defended the use of pentobarbital, disputing that Purkey’s autopsy proved he suffered. They have also cited Supreme Court ruling precedent that an execution method isn't necessarily cruel and unusual just because it causes some pain.
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TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The scheduled federal execution of a 10-year-old Kansas girl's killer was back on track Friday after an appellate panel tossed a lower court's ruling that would have required the government to get a drug prescription before it could use pentobarbital to kill the inmate.
Questions about whether pentobarbital causes pain prior to death has been a focus of last-minute appeals for Keith Nelson, who would be the fifth person to die this year and the second this week in the Trump administration’s resumption of federal executions after a 17-year hiatus. All the executions by lethal injection have been carried out at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
If Nelson's lawyer appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court on the prescription issue, the decision on whether Nelson lives or dies Friday could still come down to the high court. But similar moves to delay three other executions last month failed, with the high court ruling 5-4 to allow them to proceed.
Nelson’s spiritual adviser, Sister Barbara Battista, told The Associated Press early Friday that she would be at Nelson’s side inside the death chamber if the execution goes ahead.
She spoke to the 45-year-old Nelson regularly since last month, and last talked to him by phone Wednesday, saying he sounded more subdued than usual but not frightened.
“His parting words were … ‘I don’t want to see you on Friday but I probably will,’” she said. “He would rather be alive after Friday. But he is facing the reality.”
Nelson also told her that, as of Wednesday, he did not plan to make a last statement just before the lethal injection is administered.
A flurry of filings by Nelson's legal team over several weeks zeroed in on pentobarbital, which depresses the central nervous system and, in high doses, eventually stops the heart.
In one filing in early August, Nelson's attorneys cited an unofficial autopsy on one inmate executed last month, William Purkey, saying it indicated evidence of pulmonary edema in which the lungs fill with fluid and causes a painful sensation akin to drowning.
In her now-overturned ruling, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan halted Nelson's execution early Thursday, saying laws regulating drugs require the prescriptions, even for executions. Within hours a panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out Chutkan's order with little explanation.
Nelson’s crime was horrific by any measure.
Then in his mid-20s, Nelson grabbed 10-year-old Pamela Butler off the street and threw her into his truck in broad daylight on Oct. 12, 1999. The fifth-grade student had been returning to her Kansas City, Kansas, home on inline skates after buying cookies at a store. As he drove off, he made a rude gesture to Butler’s sister, who saw the attack and screamed.
Nelson, who didn’t previously know Butler or her family, told a co-worker a month earlier he planned to find a female to kidnap, torture, rape and kill because he expected to go back to prison anyway on other charges, prosecutors said.
After raping Butler, Nelson strangled her with a wire, then dumped her body in a wooded area near a Missouri church.
In a 2018 ruling, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Nelson showed no remorse during a sentencing hearing statement and instead “blistered the district court and the victim’s family with a profanity laden tirade.”
Butler’s mother, Cherri West, hoped Nelson’s execution would bring her some peace after living for decades with the torment of her daughter’s final hours.
“To know that that was the last face that she saw on this earth ... and having to know how scared she was and what he was doing to her, has literally eaten me up,"she said.
Battista, a nun at a Terre Haute-area convent and anti-death penalty activist, said Nelson is not the same man he was.
“He committed a heinous crime,” she said “But he is a human being. … And who among us would want to be judged by their worst decision?”
With the execution Wednesday of Lezmond Mitchell — the only Native American on federal death row — the federal government under President Donald Trump registered more executions in 2020 than it had in the previous 56 years combined.
The executions of Nelson and Mitchell were scheduled for the same week as the Republican National Convention, where many Trump supporters sought to portray him as a law-and-order candidate.
Nelson’s current attorneys said Nelson's lawyers during the 2001 penalty phase of his case should have emphasized mitigating evidence, including that Nelson suffered brain damage as a newborn and was abused as a child.
During arguments, prosecutors pointed to Nelson’s twin brother, saying he grew up in similarly difficult circumstances but had a good job and had done well.
Nelson lawyer Dale Baich, who intended to be a witness at the execution if it happens, said the world wouldn’t be made safer by killing his client.
“Having him spend the rest of his life in prison would accomplish the same goal,” he said.
Government attorneys have defended the use of pentobarbital, disputing that Purkey’s autopsy proved he suffered. They have also cited Supreme Court ruling precedent that an execution method isn't necessarily cruel and unusual just because it causes some pain.
Pentobarbital has few medical uses for humans, though it is often used by veterinarians to euthanize animals.
Three federal executions in the early 2000s deployed a cocktail of three drugs: sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
But after makers of those drugs objected to their use in executions, states and the federal government scrambled for alternatives. Attorney General William Barr last year approved reworked execution protocols that called for using pentobarbital alone.
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TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The scheduled federal execution of a 10-year-old Kansas girl’s killer was back on track Friday after an appellate panel tossed a lower court’s ruling that would have required the government to get a drug prescription before it could use pentobarbital to kill the inmate.
Questions about whether pentobarbital causes pain prior to death has been a focus of last-minute appeals for Keith Nelson, who would be the fifth person to die this year and the second this week in the Trump administration’s resumption of federal executions after a 17-year hiatus. All the executions by lethal pentobarbital injection have been carried out at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
If Nelson’s lawyer appeals Friday to the Supreme Court on the prescription issue, the decision on whether Nelson lives or dies Friday could still come down to the high court. But similar moves to delay three other executions last month failed, with the high court ruling 5-to-4 allow them to proceed.
A flurry of filing by Nelson’s legal team over several weeks zeroed in on pentobarbital, a barbituate that depresses the central nervous system and, in high doses, eventually stops the heart.
In one filing in early August, attorneys for the 45-year-old Nelson cited an unofficial autopsy on one inmate executed last month, William Purkey, saying it indicated evidence of pulmonary edema in which the lungs fill with fluid and causes a painful sensation akin to drowning.
In her now-overturned ruling, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan halted Nelson’s execution early Thursday, saying laws regulating drugs require the prescriptions, even for executions. Government attorneys appealed and within hours a panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out Chutkan’s order with little explanation.
Nelson’s crime was horrific by any measure.
Then in his mid-20s, Nelson grabbed 10-year-old Pamela Butler off the street and threw her into his truck in broad daylight on Oct. 12, 1999. The fifth-grade student had been returning to her Kansas City, Kansas, home on inline skates after buying cookies at a store. As he drove off, he made a rude gesture to Butler’s sister, who saw the attack and screamed. Onlookers got his license plate number.
Nelson, who didn’t previously know Butler or her family, told a co-worker a month earlier he planned to find a female to kidnap, torture, rape and kill because he expected to go back to prison anyway on other charges, prosecutors said.
After raping Butler, Nelson strangled her with a wire, then dumped her body in a wooded area near a Missouri church.
In a 2018 ruling, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Nelson showed no remorse during a sentencing hearing statement and instead “blistered the district court and the victim’s family with a profanity laden tirade.”
Butler’s mother, Cherri West, hoped Nelson’s execution would bring her some peace after living for decades with the torment of her daughter’s final hours.
“To know that that was the last face that she saw on this earth before he took her, and having to know how scared she was and what he was doing to her, has literally eaten me up.”
With the execution Wednesday of Lezmond Mitchell — the only Native American on federal death row — the federal government under President Donald Trump registered more executions in 2020 than it had in the previous 56 years combined.
The executions of Nelson and Mitchell were scheduled for the same week as the Republican National Convention, where many Trump supporters sought to portray him as a law-and-order candidate.
“The death penalty is not about fairness and justice, it’s about politics,” said Nelson’s lawyer, Dale Baich.
Nelson’s current attorneys said Nelson’s lawyers during the 2001 penalty phase of his case should have emphasized mitigating evidence, including that Nelson suffered brain damage as a newborn and was abused as a child.
During arguments, prosecutors pointed to Nelson’s twin brother, saying he grew up in similarly difficult circumstances but had a good job and had done well.
Baich, who said he intended to be a witness at the execution if it happens, said the world wouldn’t be safer if his client was put to death.
“Having him spend the rest of his life in prison would accomplish the same goal,” he said.
Government attorneys have defended the use of pentobarbital, disputing that Purkey’s autopsy proved he suffered. They have also cited Supreme Court ruling precedent that an execution method isn’t necessarily cruel and unusual just because it causes some pain.
Pentobarbital has few medical uses for humans, though it is often used by veterinarians to euthanize animals.
Three federal executions in the early 2000s deployed a cocktail of three drugs: sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
But after makers of those drugs objected to their use in executions, states and the federal government scrambled for alternatives. Attorney General William Barr last year approved reworked execution protocols that called for using pentobarbital alone.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A panel of federal appeals court judges is letting the U.S. government proceed with the planned execution of a man who kidnapped, raped and killed a 10-year-old Kansas girl.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Thursday evening acted to let the execution of Keith Dwayne Nelson go forward Friday afternoon as scheduled. The court acted less than 24 hours after a lower court judge had halted his execution, saying the law requires the government to get a prescription for the drug it plans to use.
In an opinion early Thursday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said a federal law that regulates drugs requires the government to get a prescription for the lethal injection drug pentobarbital, which it plans to use.
But in a brief, unsigned order Thursday evening, the panel of three appeals court judges acted to let the execution go forward, saying “there are insufficient findings and conclusions that irreparable injury will result from the statutory violation found by the district court.” The panel included two judges appointed by President Barack Obama, Cornelia Pillard and Robert Wilkins, and Neomi Rao, who was appointed by President Donald Trump.
Nelson attorney Dale Baich in an email to The Associated Press: “We are carefully reviewing the order and considering the options available to us.”
Nelson’s execution is scheduled to be the fifth carried out this year by the federal government at the death chamber of the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The executions followed the Trump administration’s announcement last year that it would resume executing death row inmates for the first time since 2003.
Nelson was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to the 1999 kidnapping, rape and killing of Pamela Butler. The 10-year-old was rollerblading in front of her Kansas home when Nelson abducted her. He later raped her before strangling her to death with a wire.
Chutkan’s 13-page opinion putting Nelson’s execution on hold came hours after the government carried out the execution of Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row, despite objections from many Navajo leaders. With Mitchell’s execution, the federal government has now carried out more executions in 2020 than it had in the previous 56 years combined. Two more executions are scheduled for September. All of the executions have been carried out using pentobarbital.
Though the inmates who were put to death by the federal government have sought to halt their executions, challenging the drug’s use, among other things, the Supreme Court has sided with federal officials, in two cases reversing lower court orders keeping the government from carrying out scheduled executions.
Chutkan, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, said in her opinion that it is “undisputed that a prescription is required to dispense pentobarbital in the ordinary course.”
“It is also undisputed,” she wrote, “that the government has not obtained a prescription — nor does it intend to — for the use of pentobarbital in Nelson’s execution.”
But Chutkan said that under previous court decisions, when pentobarbital is being used for an execution it is still subject to the requirements in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act so a prescription is required.
The government has argued that pentobarbital is not subject to the act when used for lethal injections.
Pentobarbital depresses the central nervous system and, given in a high dosage, causes the heart to stop. It doesn’t have widespread medical uses, though is often used by veterinarians to anesthetize or euthanize animals.
For three federal executions in the early 2000s, the government used different drugs, but pharmaceutical companies later refused to allow those drugs to be used in executions, forcing the federal and many state governments to seek an alternative. Attorney General William Barr last year approved reworked execution protocols that called for using pentobarbital alone.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge in Washington halted the federal government’s planned Friday execution of a man who kidnapped, raped and killed a 10-year-old Kansas girl, saying the law requires the government to get a prescription for the drug it plans to use.
In an opinion early Thursday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said a federal law that regulates drugs requires the government to get a prescription for the lethal injection drug pentobarbital, which it plans to use to execute Keith Dwayne Nelson. The government is appealing.
Nelson’s execution was scheduled to be the fifth carried out this year by the federal government at the death chamber of the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The executions followed the Trump administration’s announcement last year that it would resume executing death row inmates for the first time since 2003.
Nelson was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to the 1999 kidnapping, rape and killing of Pamela Butler. The 10-year-old was rollerblading in front of her Kansas home when Nelson abducted her. He later raped her before strangling her to death with a wire.
Chutkan’s 13-page opinion came hours after the government carried out the execution of Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row, despite objections from many Navajo leaders. With Mitchell’s execution, the federal government has now carried out more executions in 2020 than it had in the previous 56 years combined. Two more executions are scheduled for September. All of the executions have been carried out using pentobarbital.
Though the inmates who were put to death by the federal government have sought to halt their executions, challenging the drug’s use, among other things, the Supreme Court has sided with federal officials, in two cases reversing lower court orders keeping the government from carrying out scheduled executions.
Chutkan, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, said in her opinion that it is “undisputed that a prescription is required to dispense pentobarbital in the ordinary course.”
“It is also undisputed,” she wrote, “that the government has not obtained a prescription — nor does it intend to — for the use of pentobarbital in Nelson’s execution.”
But Chutkan said that under previous court decisions, when pentobarbital is being used for an execution it is still subject to the requirements in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act so a prescription is required.
“The court hereby enjoins Defendants from executing Keith Nelson until they have met the requirements of the FDCA,” Chutkan wrote.
The government has argued that pentobarbital is not subject to the act when used for lethal injections. It did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment before business hours Thursday.
Pentobarbital depresses the central nervous system and, given in a high dosage, causes the heart to stop. It doesn’t have widespread medical uses, though is often used by veterinarians to anesthetize or euthanize animals.
For three federal executions in the early 2000s, the government used different drugs, but pharmaceutical companies later refused to allow those drugs to be used in executions, forcing the federal and many state governments to seek an alternative. Attorney General William Barr last year approved reworked execution protocols that called for using pentobarbital alone.