Trump administration executes 3rd inmate in 4 days despite Dustin Higgs’ pleas for mercy
The federal government under President Trump executed a 13th person early Saturday morning, brushing off his innocence claims and recent coronavirus diagnosis to cap a stunning and record-breaking execution spree.
Dustin Higgs, 48, was killed by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind. He was the third federal inmate to die this week, following the executions of drug trafficker Corey Johnson on Thursday night and Lisa Montgomery early Wednesday morning.
Higgs was pronounced dead at 1:23 Saturday morning, the Associated Press reported.
Higgs was sentenced to death in 2000 for the kidnapping and murder of three women — Tamika Black, 19, Tanji Jackson, 21, and Mishann Chinn, 23. Prosecutors said the former Maryland resident ordered a friend to kill the victims in January 1996 because one of them had rejected his sexual advances.
The Supreme Court threw out his last chance at life late Friday night, overruling a stay issued by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
“This is not justice. After waiting almost two decades to resume federal executions, the Government should have proceeded with some measure of restraint to ensure it did so lawfully,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. “When it did not, this Court should have. It has not. Because the Court continues this pattern today, I dissent.”
Higgs insisted through his dying day that he was innocent and never told his co-defendant to murder the women.
The man who fatally shot the three women was not given the death penalty.
“I’m currently sitting on Death Row for a crime I didn’t commit!” Higgs said in a statement posted on a website created by his advocates. “I wonder if it’s that I’m not yelling loud enough, or is it that the blatant miscarriage of justice of me being killed for a crime I’m certainly innocent of really doesn’t matter.”
Higgs’ execution was briefly stalled this week because of his COVID-19 diagnosis. Lawyers for him and Johnson, who also contracted the virus, argued that the lethal injections used by the Justice Department would cause fluid to rush into their damaged lungs and spark a sensation of drowning, essentially constituting torture. The stays of execution were later vacated, and the Supreme Court also denied Johnson’s last-minute appeal Thursday night.
An Associated Press reporter who witnessed Johnson’s execution said there were no obvious signs that he ever experienced pain.
This week’s federal executions are part of the Justice Department’s controversial race to execute federal prisoners before death-penalty opponent Joe Biden is sworn into office next week.
RELATED: Corey Johnson executed by federal government following legal battle over COVID diagnosis
The Trump administration has executed more federal civilian inmates in a 12-month span than any president since Grover Cleveland back in 1896. Former Attorney General Bill Barr resumed the practice in July after a 17-year hiatus.
The number of inmates put to death by the Trump administration is already higher than the previous six decades combined. No President had ordered the execution of even 10 people across his entire term since Franklin Roosevelt, whose execution orders spanned eight years, not seven months.
Federal authorities say Higgs already exhausted his legal challenges long ago. His convictions and nine death sentences were affirmed on appeal about 17 years ago and another round of collateral challenges failed about eight years ago.
An online petition claiming Higgs was wrongly convicted has drawn nearly 1.8 million signatures.
