Final federal execution of Trump era set in Indiana

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The last federal inmate facing execution before President Trump leaves office was sentenced to death for the killings of three women in a Maryland wildlife refuge, a crime that led to a life sentence for the man who fired the fatal shots.

Dustin Higgs, 48, who was scheduled to be executed Friday at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., says no one alleges he pulled the trigger. His lawyers have argued it is “arbitrary and inequitable” to execute Higgs while Willis Haynes, the man who fatally shot the women in 1996, was spared a death sentence.

The federal judge who presided over Higgs’ trial two decades ago says he “merits little compassion.”

“He received a fair trial and was convicted and sentenced to death by a unanimous jury for a despicable crime,” U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte wrote in a Dec. 29 ruling.

Defense attorneys won temporary stays of execution this week for Higgs and another inmate, Corey Johnson, after arguing that their recent COVID19 infections put them at greater risk of unnecessary suffering during the lethal injections. But higher courts overruled those decisions, allowing the executions to go forward, and Johnson was executed Thursday night.

Johnson was the 12th inmate executed since the Trump administration restarted federal executions following a 17year hiatus.

Shawn Nolan, one of Higgs’ attorneys, sees a clear political agenda in the unprecedented string of federal executions at the end of Trump’s presidency. Higgs was scheduled to be executed five days before Presidentelect Joe Biden’s inauguration. A spokesman for Biden has said the Democrat is against the death penalty and will work to end its use.

“In the midst of the pandemic and everything that’s going on right now in the country, it seems just insane to move forward with these executions,” Nolan said recently.

“And particularly for Dustin, who didn’t shoot anybody. He didn’t kill anybody.”

In 2000, a federal jury in Maryland convicted Higgs of firstdegree murder and kidnapping in the killings of Tamika Black, 19; Mishann Chinn. 23; and Tanji Jackson, 21.

An appeals court ruled that jurors could find that Higgs had the dominant role in the murders even though Haynes was the triggerman.