US Kills Two Prisoners – level 2

22-07-2020 07:00

In 2003, a court convicted Wesley Purkey of murder. Purkey killed a 16-year-old girl in Kansas City, USA. The court sentenced Purkey to death. The plan was to execute Purkey this week on Wednesday.

However, the judge worried about the man’s mental health. In 2003, Purkey was a healthy man; however, this week Purkey’s lawyers said that Purkey did not understand the situation anymore because he had Alzheimer’s disease. In the last minutes of his life, Purkey apologized to the girl’s family and to his own daughter, too.

US federal officials executed two prisoners this week, and it was very unusual. The last time it happened was almost 20 years ago. Usually, each state decides about its own prisoners.

Difficult words: convict (to say that someone did something wrong through a court system), sentence (to say what will happen to someone who did something wrong through a court system), execute (to kill someone legally after a court decides about it), Alzheimer’s disease (a disease that affects the mind of a person as he or she gets older).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.

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