USCA-DC Denies Stay in Federal Execution Case

Number three in USDOJ’s murderers row, Dustin Honken, is set for execution today. Honken was a drug trafficker who murdered a dealer turned informant. He also murdered three other people in the household–a mother and her two children aged 10 and 6. He later murdered a fifth person.

Early this morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied a stay pending appeal of Honken’s claim under the Administrative Procedure Act. See this post from Wednesday for a brief description of that claim and the District Judge’s rejection of it.

The Court of Appeals decided, correctly in my view, that Honken does not have a reasonable possibility of success on the claim. That is one of the criteria for a stay pending appeal.

No petition to the Supreme Court shows up on a search of that court’s online docket as of this writing. Given the events of the last week, Honken has nearly zero chance there.

The Des Moines Register has this story on the crimes. The victims are Greg Nicholson, 34, Lori Ann Duncan, 31, Kandace Duncan, 10, Amber Duncan, 6, and Terry DeGeus, 32. It was the murder of the two children that moved Honken up to the first tier of USDOJ’s execution priority list. The execution is set for 4:00 p.m. EDT.