According to a comprehensive report by the US Chinese Network, in the early morning of Saturday, the US government executed death row prisoner Dustin Higgs, the last prisoner to be executed during the Trump administration and the 13th prisoner to be executed in six months.
Three federal death row inmates scheduled for execution this week were called off earlier this week for different reasons. Despite the dissenting opinions of some judges, the Supreme Court refused to halt executions. Judge Sonya Sotomayor called it an "unprecedented acceleration".
▲U.S. Supreme Court Building. (Xinhua Net)
Higgs and two other men are accused of killing three women in 1996, one of whom, Willis Haynes, was actually the one pulling the trigger. Haynes pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. In 2000, Higgs was convicted of a number of federal offences, including first-degree premeditated murder, three first-degree felony murders and three counts of kidnapping to death.
According to the Associated Press, Higgs was executed at 1:23 a.m. at a federal prison in Trehout, Texas.
Higgs' lawyer, Shawn Nolan, said in a statement issued after the execution that he "spent decades on death row, helping those around him while working tirelessly to defy his unjust sentence." ”
Nolan added: "There is no reason to execute him, especially during the pandemic. Higgs, who was suspended for contracting COVID-19 earlier this week, told the court that it was cruel to execute the sentence after he was infected with COVID-19 because lung damage could cause a fatal injection of five barbiturates to give him the feeling of drowning.
Corey Johnson, 52, was executed Thursday night. He also contracted COVID-19 in prison, and his lawyer argued that the execution after the infection was a "cruel and unusual punishment."
Lisa Montgomery was executed early Wednesday. She is the only woman on death row in the federal union and the first female prisoner to be sentenced to death by the federal government since 1953. She was charged with strangling a pregnant woman and removing the unborn baby by dissection with a knife.
The execution came just days before president-elect Biden took office, who opposed the federal death penalty. (Original title: Three federal death row inmates suspended this week were executed)