The Supreme Court of the United States has intervened to allow the federal government to execute inmate Dustin Higgs despite strong dissents from two justices, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. This accounts for the 13th execution of inmates in a six-month period. The push came from the Trump administration to carry out as many death sentences as possible before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who opposes capital punishment.
The decision to execute Higgs was put on hold by lower courts because there was a technical legal issue: Higgs was convicted in 2000 in federal court in Maryland for the killings of three women. At the time he was sentenced, the judge implicitly provided for Maryland law to govern his execution. However, Maryland abolished capital punishment in 2013. According to the Federal Death Penalty Act, death sentences handed down in federal court must be implemented “in the manner prescribed by law of the State in which the sentence is imposed.” But there is an allowance for the federal court to designate another state to govern the execution if the original state cannot.
To bypass this legal issue, in 2020, the Department of Justice asked a federal judge to amend Higg’s sentencing judgement and designate Indiana law as the governing law where capital punishment was legal. However, in late December 2020, U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte ruled that he lacked the authority to make such a decision.
The government then appealed to the 4th Circuit, and in doing so, bypassed the Court of Appeal, where a date for an oral argument on the issue was arranged for the 27th January. However, the 4th Circuit later cancelled the hearing and issued a stay of execution instead for an indefinite duration in order to review the case.
Unsatisfied with the 4th Circuit’s decision, the government petitioned the Supreme court for “certiorari before judgement” to amend Higg’s sentencing judgement and designate Indiana law as the governing law. In a brief, unsigned ruling issued an hour before midnight on the 15th January, the justices allowed the amendment and Higgs was executed just a few hours later. Higgs was pronounced dead at 1:23am on Saturday morning.
The Supreme Court’s ruling came 24 hours after the court denied an emergency appeal filed by Higgs and another inmate, Corey Johnson. Both Higgs and Johnson argued that they would experience excessive suffering during their legal injections because both had tested positive for COVID-19 and asked the court to suspend their executions to allow them time to recover.
A total of 3 judges; Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, sat in the minority. Both Breyer and Sotomayor wrote sobering dissents lamenting the recent string of executions and the court’s role in allowing them to happen. Sotomayor listed the names of the 13 people executed in the last six months and accused the court of essentially rubber-stamping these executions. She remarked: “Over the past six months, this Court has repeatedly sidestepped its usual deliberative processes, often at the Government’s request, allowing it to push forward with an unprecedented, breakneck timetable of executions.”
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