Death Sentences Hit Record Lows Amid Federal Executions Surge-Report Death Row Inmate Dustin Higgs Not Surprised by Virus Diagnosis.Lisa Montgomery Execution Stayed as Attorneys Appeal to Trump for 'Mercy'.Brandon Bernard Attorney Calls Execution 'Stain' On Justice System.The DOJ should withdraw Dustin's execution date or President Trump should commute his death sentence." "The government should not carry out yet another super-spreader execution in the heart of this global pandemic. "There is no principled basis to execute Dustin Higgs given that the shooter in this case is serving a life sentence and the trial prosecutors actively misled the jury in Dustin's case," Shawn Nolan, one of Higgs' attorneys, said in a statement to Newsweek. They noted that his co-defendant, Willis Haynes, was the sole shooter in the case, but was tried separately and not sentenced to death. but instead drove them to a secluded area in a national park, gave a gun to one of his friends and said, "better make sure they're dead." The other man shot all three woman dead, according to the DOJ.īut Higgs' attorneys have argued that he didn't actually kill anyone, had ineffective counsel at trial and did not deserve to die. Prosecutors said after one of the women rebuffed his advances, Higgs offered them a ride back to Washington, D.C. in January 1996 to pick up the women-Tamika Black, 19 Tanji Jackson, 21 and Mishann Chinn, 23-and drive them back to his apartment in Laurel, Maryland. Higgs, a Black man, was sentenced to death in 2000 for the kidnapping and murder of three young women.Īccording to the Department of Justice, Higgs and two friends had driven to Washington, D.C. The Trump administration resumed federal executions last summer and went on to execute more people in a single year than any administration in more than a century.Ī sign sits on the edge of the property at the Federal Correctional Complex on Jin Terre Haute, Indiana. District Court for the District of Columbia to halt their executions, that argues it would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment to execute them while they are still recovering from COVID-19.īut if Higgs' execution goes ahead on Friday, he will be put to death at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana just five days before Biden, a death penalty opponent, is inaugurated. Higgs and Johnson are awaiting a ruling on litigation jointly filed in the U.S. Higgs' attorneys have called on the Department of Justice to withdraw his execution date after he became he first federal death row inmate to contract COVID-19 last month.Ĭory Johnson, who also tested positive for the virus, and Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, are also facing execution this week. Higgs, 48, is the last of the federal death row inmates currently scheduled for execution. Dustin John Higgs is scheduled to die on Friday, capping an unprecedented spree of federal executions that began last summer amid a raging pandemic and set to end just days before a new president is sworn in.
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