The planned federal execution of Keith Dwayne Nelson is back on schedule for Friday evening after an appeals court overturned an earlier ruling from a federal judge, CNN reports. The flurry of last-minute court rulings began Thursday when Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the execution halted while Nelson pressed claims that the government’s use of the drug pentobarbital violated the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act. Thursday evening, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned Chutkan.
Nelson’s attorneys said they might appeal to the Supreme Court. “The ruling basically allows the government to pick and choose when it will follow the law,” said attorney Dale Baich. Nelson, 45, is scheduled to be the fifth federal inmate executed this summer since the Justice Department reinstated federal executions after a 17-year hiatus. He was sentenced to death for the kidnapping, sexual abuse and killing of a 10-year-old girl he took while she was rollerblading in front of her Kansas home. Nelson admitted raping the girl and strangling her to death with a wire. Even if Nelson appeals to the Supreme Court, it is unlikely the justices would halt his execution. The court has allowed all three executions that have been appealed this summer to proceed.