Mastermind of Seven Murders Put to Death

Corey Johnson, a drug gang enforcer sentenced to death for arranging the 1992 murders of 7 people in Richmond, Virginia was executed without incident last night.  Jeff Mordock of The Washington Times reports that Johnson’s attorneys made a last-minuted claim that he had tested positive for Covid-19 and that his execution by lethal injection would cause him to suffer the same experience as waterboarding, which would be cruel and unusual punishment.    On Tuesday, District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan stayed Johnson’s execution ruling that it should be delayed until March to allow recovery from the virus.

A panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the stay. In parallel litigation filed in Virginia, the Fourth Circuit also denied a stay. The Supreme Court later refused to issue its own stay in both cases (here and here). In his concurring  opinion in the Fourth Circuit case, Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote, “There has been no dearth of process here, and we squarely rejected his contention that he is intellectually disabled under Atkins.  In 1993, a jury convicted Johnson of twenty-seven counts, including seven murders. At sentencing, the defense retained an eminently qualified University of Virginia psychologist, who gave a lengthy presentation to the jury showing that Johnson had experienced a difficult childhood and suffered from a learning disability, though he had to concede that Johnson was not intellectually disabled….Since then, there have been seven more habeas petitions, accompanied by endless motions, district court decisions, rejected appeals, and denied certiorari petitions.  Johnson has raised dozens of other claims that many different judges have rejected as meritless…. I should say finally that there is not the slightest question of innocence here. Johnson has committed multiple murders of a horrific nature, and even in the depressing annals of 5 capital crimes, his case stands out. As Judge Novak recounted below, Johnson is a brutal “serial killer” who was involved in at least ten murders as an enforcer for a large-scale narcotics operation. United States v. Johnson, No. 3:92cr68, 2021 WL 17809, at *1-2 (E.D. Va. Jan. 2, 2021). The time has long since passed for the judgment of the jury and that of so many courts thereafter to be carried out.”