WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has refused to block the execution of four federal prison inmates who are scheduled to be put to death in July and August – including an Iowa drug-dealer convicted of killing five people. Among them, was two children. The executions would mark the first use of the death penalty on the federal level since 2003. The justices rejected an appeal from four inmates who were convicted of killing children, including Dustin Honken.

Honken was a northern Iowa drug dealer facing federal charges for manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine in 1993 when he shot and killed five people. Gregory Nicholson had planned to testify against Honken in his trial. Nicholson, his girlfriend Lori Duncan, and her two children Amber and Kandi were shot to death execution-style in July of 1993. Honken was convicted of the murders in 2004 and given the death penalty. He appealed but a district judge upheld the ruling in 2013. All of his appeals have been exhausted.

The court’s action leaves no obstacles standing in the way of the executions, the first of which is scheduled for July 13. The inmates are separately asking a federal judge in Washington to impose a new delay on their executions over other legal issues that have yet to be resolved.