Jessica Schulberg
January 14, 2021, 8:43 PM
Corey Johnson, 52, had been diagnosed with COVID-19 last month. (Photo: Provided by counsel for Corey Johnson)
The Trump administration executed 52-year-old Corey Johnson on Thursday night, despite a Supreme Court ruling that executing people with intellectual disabilities like his violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The government killed Johnson with a lethal injection of pentobarbital, a process that often causes pulmonary edema, a condition in which fluid enters the lungs while the person is still conscious and creates a painful sensation similar to suffocating or drowning. At the time of his execution, Johnson was still experiencing symptoms from his COVID-19 diagnosis last month. Medical experts have warned that receiving an overdose of pentobarbital would likely be even more painful for individuals recovering from COVID-19 because the virus often damages the lungs.