Page 7 - ARUBA TODAY

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U.S. NEWS Saturday 7 december 2019

Roof collapses at Supreme Court keeps federal

historic church in executions on hold

black Florida community By MARK SHERMAN

Associated Press
ORLANDO (AP) — The roof WASHINGTON (AP) — The
has collapsed on a 94-year- Supreme Court on Friday
old Florida church that was blocked the Trump ad-
only recently granted his- ministration from restart-
toric landmark status, fur- ing federal executions
ther endangering efforts to next week after a 16-year
preserve the surrounding break.
black community. The justices denied the
No one was injured when administration's plea to
the roof of the Black Bot- undo a lower court rul-
tom House of Prayer in ing in favor of inmates
Parramore crumbled in who have been given In this Jan. 24, 2019, file photo, the Supreme Court is seen at
on itself Thursday morning, This photo provided by the execution dates. The first sunset in Washington.
news outlets report. It's un- Orlando Fire Dept. shows of those had been sched- Associated Press
clear what caused it, fire damage to the Black Bottom uled for Monday, with a
spokeswoman Ashley Pa- House of Prayer in Orlando, second set for Friday. Two in Washington undertakes Lee was convicted of kill-
pagni told the Orlando Fla., on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019. more inmates had been a full review of Chutkan's ing a family of three, in-
Sentinel. Associated Press given execution dates in ruling. cluding an 8-year-old.
"The slightest little change The church was built in January. The Supreme Court jus- The government had next
in shift of weight or wind 1925, according to it web- Attorney General William tices directed the ap- planned on Friday to ex-
and the rest of the building site. Black families had Barr announced during peals court to act "with ecute Wesley Ira Purkey,
will collapse," Orlando Fire moved to the area in 1916, the summer that federal appropriate dispatch." who raped and mur-
District Chief Bryan Davis calling it "black bottom" executions would resume Justice Samuel Alito wrote dered a 16-year-old girl
told WKMG-TV. for the rain-fed flood wa- using a single drug, pen- in a short separate opinion and killed an 80-year-old
City officials ordered the ter that lingered so long, tobarbital, to put inmates that he believes the gov- woman. His lawyers say
unstable structure to be people had to use canoes to death. ernment ultimately will win Purkey is suffering from
demolished. Pastor Dana for transportation. Initially U.S. District Judge Tanya the case and would have dementia and he has a
Jackson and her two known as the home of the Chutkan in Washington, set a 60-day deadline separate lawsuit pending
grandchildren raced inside Pleasant Hill Colored Meth- D.C., temporarily halted for appeals court action. in federal court in Wash-
Thursday trying to prevent odist Episcopal congrega- the executions after some Justices Neil Gorsuch and ington, D.C.
that, and prayed for sever- tion, the church was later of the chosen inmates Brett Kavanaugh joined Then in January, execu-
al minutes before leaving. renamed Carter's Taberna- challenged the new ex- Alito's opinion. tions had been scheduled
City Commissioner Regina cle CME before getting its ecution procedures in Justice Department for Alfred Bourgeois, who
Hill also arrived and had current name. The neigh- court. Chutkan ruled that spokeswoman Kerri Ku- tortured, molested and
the demolition work tem- borhood born from seg- the procedure approved pec said the legal fight then beat his two-and-
porarily halted, but it was regation now faces gen- by Barr likely violates the would continue. "While a-half-year-old daughter
expected to resume on Fri- trification after struggling Federal Death Penalty we are disappointed with to death, and Dustin Lee
day. with poverty and institu- Act. the ruling, we will argue Honken, who killed five
Jackson bought the church tional racism for decades. The federal appeals court the case on its merits in people, including two
in 2015 and was leading The Sentinel reported that in Washington had earlier the D.C. Circuit and, if children.
restoration efforts. She said its identity is in question as denied the administra- necessary, the Supreme A fifth inmate, Lezmond
it's painful to see it like this. real estate values and rents tion's emergency plea to Court," Kupec said in a Mitchell, has had his ex-
"It's a personal pain be- skyrocket, forcing longtime put Chutkan's ruling on statement. ecution blocked by the
cause I used the money residents out. Median rent hold and allow the exe- Four inmates won tem- federal appeals court in
from the death of my son in the zip code including cutions to proceed. porary reprieves from the San Francisco over ques-
to purchase the church," Parramore climbed from Federal executions are court rulings. Danny Lee tions of bias against Na-
she said. "It was my griev- $916 in 2014 to more than likely to remain on hold at was the first inmate sched- tive Americans. Mitchell
ing project. The tears you $1,200 this year, accord- least for several months, uled for execution, at 8 beheaded a 63-year-old
see today is my work, it's ing to the online real estate while the appeals court o'clock Monday morning. woman and her 9-year-
folded." company Zillow.q