The uptick in executions comes as fewer voters support capital punishment. Bernard, who was 18 at the time, and Christopher Vialva locked the couple in a trunk where they sang church hymns as Vialva shot them in the head. Recent developments in the case lead to five out of the nine surviving jurors saying they would have changed the sentence to life in prison rather than capital punishment.īernard was found guilty of the murder of two youth ministers, Todd and Stacie Bagley, on a Texas military reservation in 1999. Everyone from Kim Kardasian to criminal justice advocates called for the Trump administration to halt his execution. The case that garnered the most social media and celebrity attention was that of Brandon Bernard. Her attorneys appealed the death sentence, citing her "brain damage and severe mental illness that was exacerbated by the lifetime of sexual torture she suffered at the hands of caretakers," according to her attorney, Kelley Henry. Montgomery pretended the baby was hers before she was arrested the next day. Montgomery was convicted of federal kidnapping resulting in death for fatally strangling 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett and then taking a kitchen knife to cut the baby out of her abdomen. In 2020, the federal government executed more inmates in a year than all states that still conduct executions for the first time in history.Īmong the thirteen was Lisa Montgomery, the first woman to be executed by the federal government in 67 years. That's what is particularly deviant about this execution spree," said Dunham.Ī spokesperson for the Biden transition said the incoming president "opposes the death penalty, now and in the future and as president will work to end its use." It has never been making discretionary choices to kill people.
"The end of administrations have been about exercising discretion to grant mercy. "It's not illegal, but it certainly shows a disregard for traditional presidential values and norms of behavior," Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told CBS News. In the days between the November 3 presidential election and the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, an opponent of the death penalty, the Trump administration decided to carry out the executions of six inmates on death row. Former Attorney General William Barr announced last July that capital punishment would resume because the Department of Justice "owes it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system." Barr scheduled two executions in October and scheduled three more at the end of November. Higgs was executed at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., and was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m., according to The Associated Press.The resurgence of the federal death penalty came after a nearly two decade dormancy.
The killings took place in the Patuxent Research Refuge, which is near Laurel, Md., but considered federal land, thus giving the federal government jurisdiction.
Higgs was found guilty in 2000 of multiple federal offenses including first-degree premeditated murder, three counts of first-degree felony murder, and three counts of kidnapping resulting in death. Haynes pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. Willis Haynes actually pulled the trigger. Higgs, along with two other men, killed three women in 1996. Justice Sonia Sotomayor called it an "unprecedented rush," saying that "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." The Supreme Court declined to stop the execution, although some justices dissented, noting that before the first of the 13, it had been 17 years since a federal execution had been carried out. government has executed Dustin Higgs, the last prisoner to be executed during the Trump administration, and the 13 th in the span of six months. This 2015 photo provided by Shawn Nolan Chief, Capital Habeas Unit Community Federal Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, shows Dustin Higgs at the Federal Prison in Terre Haute, Ind.įederal Bureau of Prisons/Community Federal Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania via AP
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