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ACLU Sues Federal Government for Risking Lives to Resume Executions During Pandemic
Buddhist Priest Should not Have to Choose Between his Health and Performing Sacred Religious Duties for Prisoner Set to be Executed in July.
INDIANAPOLIS
Seeking to delay the federal execution of Wesley Purkey later this month, the American Civil Liberties Union and Ropes Gray LLP sued Attorney General William Barr and other federal officials today on behalf of Reverend Seigen Hartkemeyer, a Buddhist priest who has ministered to Purkey for over a decade. Rev. Hartkemeyer is religiously obligated to attend Purkey's execution -- scheduled for July 15 -- but doing so would put his health and life at severe risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Purkey's execution is the second of three that the government has scheduled back to back later this month, despite a global pandemic. If carried out, these will be the first federal executions in 17 years. The executions threaten to become "super-spreader events" for COVID-19: Each execution will require the travel and congregation of hundreds of people, including correctional officers, local and national media, legal counsel from around the country, witnesses, victims' family members, and others. The Terre Haute prison at which Purkey's execution is set to take place is currently dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak.
"The fact that the federal government has scheduled these executions now, during a pandemic when COVID-19 cases are surging around the country, is appalling," said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project. "Nine of the top 10 hotspots for COVID-19 are in prisons. Asking hundreds of people from around the country to go to Indiana right now to attend this execution is like asking them to run into a burning building. We haven't had a federal execution in 17 years: There is absolutely no reason for the government to rush forward with such a reckless and dangerous plan."
Rev. Hartkemeyer -- who is 68-years-old and has lung-related illnesses that make him particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 -- has been designated as a witness to Purkey's execution. Federal regulations mandate that such designated witnesses be present at the execution. The lawsuit charges that scheduling this execution now -- and forcing Rev. Hartkemeyer to risk his health and life to perform his religious duties as Purkey's priest -- violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
"As Mr. Purkey's priest for the last 11 years, I have a religious obligation to be present at his execution to ease his crossover from this life," said Rev. Hartkemeyer, the plaintiff in this case. "I should not have to risk my health and life to perform my sacred priestly duties. We must ask ourselves how much we are willing to sacrifice to enable the government to perpetuate a cycle of killing."
"Trump officials claim to champion religious freedom, yet once again have no qualms about trampling those rights when it suits their political agenda," said Heather L. Weaver, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. "There is no reason to resume federal executions during a pandemic, especially when it would keep a priest from performing his religious commitments to a man about to lose his life."
In the past year, the Supreme Court has delayed executions in two cases addressing whether a prisoner may have his spiritual advisor present in the execution chamber. Last month, the court stopped the execution of Ruben Gutierrez in Texas and ordered the lower court to assess whether his pastor could safely accompany him in the execution chamber. Similarly, the court intervened last year when Patrick Murphy, a Buddhist man, was denied the right to have a Buddhist chaplain accompany him during the execution. The court's actions followed a public uproar after the justices allowed the execution of Domineque Ray to go forward in February 2019. Ray was a Muslim prisoner in Alabama, where the government would allow only a Christian chaplain in the execution chamber.
Today's lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. In addition to Attorney General Barr, the complaint names as defendants Michael Carvajal, director of the Bureau of Prisons, and T.J. Watson, the warden of the Terre Haute federal correctional complex. Rev. Hartkemeyer asks the court to delay Purkey's execution until an effective treatment or vaccine for COVID-19 is available.
The complaint is online, here.
A blog from Rev. Hartkemeyer can be found, here.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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'America Deserves Better': Top Trump FEMA Official Continues to Claim He's Being Teleported By God
"With over 340 million people in this country, you’d think we could find people grounded in reality to run our government programs," said Sen. Mazie Hirono.
Apr 01, 2026
The man appointed by President Donald Trump to lead America's disaster recovery will not stop talking about teleportation. It's leading many people to question whether he's fit for the job.
Even before this past week, many concerns had already been raised about Gregg Phillips, who Trump tapped as associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in December.
Phillips had no formal experience in disaster management prior to being given a senior role overseeing billions of dollars to help victims of floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.
But he did have qualifications that are evidently more important to the second Trump administration: a long history of echoing the president's baseless claims about election fraud, including that millions of noncitizens illegally voted in 2016 and that an elaborate operation involving ballot stuffing “mules” helped former President Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020.
Because Phillips was a presidential appointee, Congress was not given the opportunity to scrutinize these statements or others he's made, including his description of himself as a "very vocal opponent of FEMA," the very agency he was chosen to help lead. Nor did it have the opportunity to examine accusations that he directed millions in government contracts to his own personal businesses and associates while working in the Texas and Mississippi governments.
But months into his tenure, Phillips is finally getting some attention for comments he made on multiple podcasts, in which he claimed to have been involuntarily "teleported," including to a Waffle House in Georgia.
Phillips discussed the supernatural experience in a January 2025 episode of the podcast Onward, hosted by fellow election conspiracy theorist Catherine Engelbrecht. CNN first reported on the conversation earlier this month:
"I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House—this was in Georgia—and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was,” Phillips said...
"And they said, ‘Where are you?’ and I said, ‘A Waffle House.’ And, 'A Waffle House where?’ And I said, ‘Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.’ And they said, ‘That’s not possible, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.”
“Teleporting is no fun,” Phillips added. “It’s no fun because you don’t really know what you’re doing. You don’t really understand it, it’s scary, but yet um—but so real. And you know it’s happening but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what, just an incredible adventure it all was.”
Phillips said this was not the only time he'd been teleported. In another case, he described his car being “lifted up” and dropped in a ditch outside a church in Albany, Georgia.
CNN reported on other controversial and violent statements made by Phillips as well, including one on the same podcast in which he said he'd like to "punch [Biden] in the mouth" and that he "deserves to die." In a 2024 Truth Social post, Phillips also urged listeners to learn how to shoot firearms and warned them that migrants were "coming here to kill you."
But it's his tales of teleportation that have drawn the greatest ridicule. And Phillips has only continued to double down, according to a report out Wednesday from CNN's KFile.
“Haters gonna hate,” Phillips wrote on Truth Social in a post that now appears to be deleted.
"I know what I’ve experienced, I know Who I serve," he continued, in a reply to one of his detractors on the right-wing social media site owned by Trump.
To another, he said: “I have no regrets for my words nor my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ. The Bible has many examples of the power of God."
Given the enormity of FEMA's responsibility, especially with the climate crisis increasing the number of billion-dollar disasters in the US in recent years, Phillips' tenuous grasp on the fabric of reality has led some to worry that the agency is in suboptimal hands.
“With over 340 million people in this country, you’d think we could find people grounded in reality to run our government programs," said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). ”And yet, here’s another powerful official who exists on lies and conspiracy theories. America deserves better.“
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‘What This Describes Is Ethnic Cleansing’: Israeli Plan for Southern Lebanon Sparks Horror
"Israel will keep doing it as long as the world keeps looking away with their eyes while reaching out their hands to help fund it," wrote one critic.
Apr 01, 2026
Critics accused Israel of plotting a mass ethnic cleansing campaign in southern Lebanon after a Wednesday report in The New York Times outlined a push by Israeli officials to expel Shiite Muslims from the area.
According to the Times, Israeli military officials have been privately pressing Christian and Druse communities in southern Lebanon to "force out any Lebanese from neighboring Shiite Muslim communities who have sought refuge among them as Israeli bombardments flatten Shiite towns."
Local Christian and Druse leaders told the Times that they believed Israel was sending a "clear signal" that their goal is to drive out all Shiites, who make up the majority of people of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is a Shiite militia group that has regularly fired rockets into Israel.
Ali Naser, a 26-year-old Shiite who lives near the Israel-Lebanon border, told the Times that he and his family had initially found shelter from Israeli bombing in the Christian town of Rmeish. However, he said that local leaders told him that they've come under great pressure from Israel to not give Shiites refuge.
"Israel wants to create a new buffer zone, it wants us out, what can we do?" asked Naser.
Adam Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic, posted an excerpt of the Times' report on Israel's plans in Southern Lebanon and commented, "So what this describes is ethnic cleansing."
Ashton Pittman, news editor at the Mississippi Free Press, shared Serwer's opinion that Israel's actions are "100% ethnic cleansing," and chided the international community for once again sitting on its hands while Israel carries out illegal forced displacement of Shiite Muslims.
"Israel will keep doing it," he wrote, "as long as the world keeps looking away with their eyes while reaching out their hands to help fund it."
George Washington University political scientist Marc Lynch also argued that the world should doing more to stop Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
"Israel’s open ethnic cleansing of south Lebanon and declared intent to occupy its neighbor’s territory should be the subject of intense international outrage, pressure, and mobilization," wrote Lynch.
The human rights organization DAWN on Wednesday cited recent remarks from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz about Israel's plans to level Lebanese villages adjacent to Israel's border, while also refusing to allow Lebanese citizens who evacuated the area to return.
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director for Israel-Palestine at DAWN, accused Israel of "accelerating its agenda to take over more land, this time in Lebanon."
"[Israel's] track record in Palestine and across the region makes clear it won't stop without concrete consequences," said Omer-Man, "and states should act before it's too late."
United Nations emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher warned on Tuesday that "a cycle of coercive displacement is unfolding" in Lebanon, where Israel's military invasion has so far displaced more than 1.1 million people.
Fletcher also said that the conflict in southern Lebanon was causing "anxiety and tensions at levels I have not witnessed in many years" in the region.
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Voting Rights Advocates Sue Over Florida GOP 'Show Your Papers' Law
"The Legislature's failure to look out for constituents instead of legislators' own political interests will harm married women, naturalized citizens, young people, and many other eligible voters."
Apr 01, 2026
As President Donald Trump bullies Congress to pass a voter suppression bill while also trying to take matters into his own hands with an executive order, voting rights advocates on Wednesday sued to block similar legislation passed by Florida Republicans.
Common Cause, Florida Immigrant Coalition, Florida Rising, Hispanic Federation, League of Women Voters of Florida, and UnidosUS filed the lawsuit over House Bill 991 on the same day that the state's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed it. The law requires documentary "evidence of citizenship," such as a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote or remain on the rolls.
"New barriers to voting too often fall hardest on the communities that have long fought to be heard in our democracy," noted Caren Short, director of legal and research at the League of Women Voters of the United States. "Sadly, but unsurprisingly, Florida's new documentary proof of citizenship law requirement is based on xenophobic lies and disinformation."
It's already illegal for noncitizens to vote, and research has shown voter fraud is incredibly rare. Short said that "the Legislature's failure to look out for constituents instead of legislators' own political interests will harm married women, naturalized citizens, young people, and many other eligible voters who do not have ready access to documents like passports or birth certificates."
Common Cause Florida executive director Amy Keith warned that "if this law stands, thousands of US citizens will be removed from Florida's voter rolls, blocking them from voting in the next presidential election if they can't afford specific documents."
"Life is getting increasingly harder and more expensive in Florida," Keith continued, "but with this bill, legislators are purging the very voters who are suffering most from Florida's affordability crisis. I don't think that's a coincidence."
UnidosUS Florida state director Jared Nordlund similarly said that the state's Republican policymakers "know their agenda is unpopular, and when they cannot win by persuading voters, they try to win by making it harder for people to vote."
"HB 991 is another solution in search of a problem, and Florida is once again the testing ground for a voter suppression playbook that could spread nationwide," Nordlund declared. "These laws target the voices they fear most, especially women, communities of color, and working-class voters."
The groups behind the suit—filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida—are represented by the state and national ACLU as well as the Advancement Project and LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
BREAKING: Gov. Ron DeSantis just signed Florida’s new anti-voter law, HB 991. This “show your papers” law adds unnecessary barriers to voting, so @aclu.org and @aclufl.bsky.social are suing. In America, voters choose our leaders — politicians don’t get to choose who votes.We’ll see you in court.
— Abdelilah Skhir (@abskhir.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 12:18 PM
"Florida's new 'show your papers' law is a blatant attempt to add unnecessary barriers to the ballot box," said Jonathan Topaz, staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. "We bring this lawsuit to ensure that Florida cannot block its eligible voters from exercising their fundamental right to vote because of missing or mismatched paperwork."
DeSantis' signing of HB 991 and the subsequent suit came a day after Trump signed a voter suppression executive order that critics called a "blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power." The measure requires the secretary of homeland security to establish a "citizenship list" of verified eligible voters in each state and directs the postmaster general to make new rules for voting by mail.
Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, said in a Tuesday statement that "once again, President Trump is attempting to seize power he does not have. The president's order is not about protecting elections—it's about trying to control them and using that control to make it harder to vote for his perceived enemies. The Constitution is very clear: Only Congress and the states can make laws regarding our elections."
"The ability to vote by mail is crucial to our democracy," she explained. "It ensures that voters with disabilities, those without transportation access, working families, those who are deployed or otherwise abroad, and many others who rely on its flexibility can exercise their right to vote. President Trump's attempts to undermine a safe, proven, and reliable method of voting is just another part of his strategy to sow distrust in our elections. As always, we are prepared to protect our democracy and our right to vote in court against these continued unconstitutional attacks."
Trump signed the order while pressuring the US Senate to pass anti-voter legislation that's already been approved by Republicans in the House of Representatives. Advancement Project power and democracy program director Hani Mirza said that the president's directive "cannot be separated from the broader legislative push for the SAVE America Act, which would impose burdensome proof-of-citizenship and photo ID requirements that would create new barriers to the ballot for millions of Americans."
"The authoritarian plan to shrink the number of people who can participate in the 2026 midterms is clear," Mirza added, just over seven months before Election Day. "In our ongoing pursuit of a truly multiracial democracy, we refuse to remain silent and will continue to defend the right to vote until every community is heard and every eligible voter is able to cast a ballot that counts."
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