DUSTIN John Higgs is a federal prisoner who is about to be executed this month for his position within the 1996 homicide of three black ladies in Maryland.
The 48-year-old is one in every of 53 prisoners on death row within the United States.
Dustin John Higgs, 48, is on dying row for against the law he’s accused of committing in 1996Credit score: savedustinjhiggs.com
Who’s Dustin John Higgs?
Dustin John Higgs is an inmate on dying row who is because of be executed on January 15, 2021.
Higgs, 48, was the primary federal inmate to contract Covid.
Higgs’ attorneys have known as on the Division of Justice to withdraw his execution date after he grew to become sick with the virus.
California has had 737 individuals on dying row, the biggest dying row inhabitants in the USACredit score: Getty Photographs – Getty
Higgs and inmate Cory Johnson are awaiting a ruling on litigation collectively filed within the U.S. District Courtroom for the District of Columbia to halt their executions.
Ought to Higgs be put to dying on January 15, he might be executed on the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The litigation states that the execution can be a violation of the US structure’s Eighth Modification prohibition on merciless and weird punishment whereas Higgs continues to be recovering from the coronavirus.
An indication factors to the Federal Correctional Complicated, the place the federal execution chamber is situated, in Terre Haute, IndianaCredit score: EPA
9 individuals had been executed final 12 months because the Trump administration rushed to put inmates to death forward of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Out of the 53 inmates on dying row, 22 of these prisoners are white, 23 are black, seven are Latino and one is Asian.
This quantity consists of one individual whose dying sentence reversal continues to be topic to a attainable enchantment.
Why is he on dying row?
Higgs is on dying row for kidnapping and murdering three ladies – 19-year-old Tamika Black, 21-year-old Tanji Jackson, and 23-year-old Mishann Chinn – in Maryland.
In January 1996, Higgs and two associates drove from Washington, DC to Maryland to choose up Black, Jackson, and Chinn, whom Higgs had invited to his condominium in Laurel, Maryland.
As soon as on the condominium, Higgs made advances in direction of Jackson, which she rejected, and the women in the end all left collectively.
Higgs is one in every of a number of inmates that might be executed below Trump’s administrationCredit score: Reuters
Higgs provided to take the ladies again to Washington DC, however as a substitute, a secluded space within the Patuxent Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, ordered the ladies out of the automobile, gave a gun to one of many associates, and stated, “higher make sure that they’re lifeless.”
One among Higgs’ associates shot Black and Jackson within the chest and again, after which shot Chinn at the back of the top, killing all three ladies.
How lengthy has he been in jail?
On October 11, 2000, a jury within the U.S. District Courtroom for the District of Maryland discovered Higgs responsible of quite a few federal offenses.
These offenses together with three counts of first-degree premeditated homicide, three counts of first-degree felony homicide, and three counts of kidnapping leading to dying.
The federal jail advanced in Terre Haute, Indiana the place Higgs is scheduled to be executedCredit score: AP:Related Press
A jury unanimously beneficial 9 dying sentences which the courtroom imposed.
Higgs’ convictions had been affirmed on enchantment.
Higgs’ attorneys have argued that his co-defendant, Willis Haynes, was the only shooter within the case and that Higgs himself didn’t kill anybody. Haynes was tried individually and was not sentenced to dying.
“There is no such thing as a principled foundation to execute Dustin Higgs on condition that the shooter on this case is serving a life sentence and the trial prosecutors actively misled the jury in Dustin’s case,” Shawn Nolan, one in every of Higgs’ attorneys, stated in a press release to Newsweek.
“The federal government mustn’t perform one more super-spreader execution within the coronary heart of this world pandemic. The DOJ ought to withdraw Dustin’s execution date or President Trump ought to commute his dying sentence.”
