The executions have been carried out amid the tumultuous final days and months of the Trump presidency and the unyielding coronavirus pandemic, becoming inextricable from both.Įven as more states and countries abandoned capital punishment, Trump remained a vocal supporter. Together with other problems that I have previously described, it calls into question the constitutionality of the death penalty itself.” “I remain convinced that this dilemma arises out of efforts to impose the death penalty. “Higgs’ case illustrates this dilemma,” wrote Breyer, noting challenges based on such new issues as his recent diagnosis of COVID-19. Justice Stephen Breyer decried the number of complex issues surrounding the death penalty that the court has faced, leaving inmates on death row for decades in some cases even as there is pressure to carry out their sentences. Unlike the two executions that preceded Higgs’ on Wednesday and Thursday, the high court handed down not just a brief order, but one with two strongly worded dissents by justices who denounced the number of inmates who had been put to death in such a compressed time frame. “Shame on all of those involved,” Nolan said. After delays, Higgs was actually executed Saturday, when he was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m., according to the Associated Press. “The government completed its unprecedented slaughter of 13 human beings tonight,” said Shawn Nolan, the public defender who represented Higgs.Ĭalling him “a fine man, a terrific father, brother and nephew,” Nolan said there was no reason to kill him, a Black man, and particularly on Martin Luther King’s birthday, which was Friday. Supreme Court order Friday night lifted a stay on his execution, Higgs, 48, became the final inmate put to death under Trump since his administration resumed federal executions in July after a 17-year hiatus. Biden's campaign has actively spoken out against the death penalty, citing the amount of wrongfully convicted inmates who have been given these sentences.BALTIMORE - Dustin John Higgs, who was convicted of murdering three women in Prince George’s County in 1996, was executed early Saturday morning, the 13th federal inmate put to death in six months by the outgoing Trump administration.Īfter a U.S. Meanwhile, President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to abolish the federal death penalty and to provide incentives to states for stopping death sentences as a part of his criminal justice plan. The federal government has authorised the executions of 13 federal death row inmates in about six months, CNN reported. In July 2019, then-Attorney General William Barr had resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus to "bring justice to victims of the most horrific crimes". Later in 2000, a Maryland jury found Higgs guilty of numerous federal offenses, including three counts of first-degree premeditated murder, three counts of first-degree felony murder, and three counts of kidnapping resulting in death, and unanimously recommended nine death sentences, which the court imposed, the statement said. He ordered the women out of the vehicle, gave a gun to one of the friends, and said, "better make sure they're dead." The other man shot Black and Jackson in the chest and back, and shot Chinn in the back of the head, killing all three women, CNN cited the statement. Higgs offered the women a ride back to DC, but instead drove to a secluded area in the Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge. In January 1996, Higgs along with two friends drove to Washington DC to pick up Black, Jackson, and Chinn, whom Higgs had invited to his apartment in Laurel, Maryland, according to a Department of Justice statement.Īt the apartment, Jackson rebuffed an advance by Higgs and the women left. Nolan also argued that Higgs was unfairly sentenced, since the actual gunman is serving a life sentence. According to CNN, Higgs' execution went forward despite his attorney, Shawn Nolan's appeal to delay the proceeding because of Higgs' Covid-19 diagnosis.
Higgs' victims were Tamika Black, 19 Tanji Jackson, 21 and Mishann Chinn, 23. I did not order the murders," he said while mentioning the three women by name. Until his death, Higgs maintained his innocence, and the tone of his voice was calm but defiant as he said his final words, according to a pool report.
Higgs became the 13th and last federal death row inmate to be executed since the US Justice Department restarted federal executions in July 2019, CNN reported. Washington, January 16 (ANI): Outgoing US President Donald Trump's administration carried out its last federal execution when Dustin John Higgs, convicted of kidnapping and murdering three women in 1996, was executed in the early hours of Saturday.
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