DUSTIN HIGGS CASE TRIAL

In October 2000, a federal jury in Maryland convicted Higgs of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the killings of Tamika Black, 19 Mishann Chinn. Higgs's difficult upbringing was not meaningfully presented to the jury at trial,' his attorneys wrote. Higgs had a traumatic childhood and lost his mother to cancer when he was 10, the petition says. 19 petition for clemency says he has been a model prisoner and dedicated father to a son born shortly after his arrest. 'And particularly for Dustin, who didn't shoot anybody. '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. A spokesman for Biden has said the Democrat is against the death penalty and will work to end its use. Higgs is scheduled to be executed five days before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration. 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. But higher courts overruled those decisions, allowing the executions to go forward, and Johnson was executed Thursday night. 29 ruling.ĭefense attorneys won temporary stays of execution this week for Higgs and another inmate, Corey Johnson, after arguing that their recent Covid-19 infections put them at greater risk of unnecessary suffering during the lethal injections. District Judge Peter Messitte wrote in a Dec.

DUSTIN HIGGS CASE TRIAL

'He received a fair trial and was convicted and sentenced to death by a unanimous jury for a despicable crime,' U.S. The federal judge who presided over Higgs' trial two decades ago says he 'merits little compassion.' (Capital Habeas Unit Community Federal Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania via AP) 15, 2021, at the federal prison in Terre Haute. Higgs, is scheduled to be executed on Friday, Jan.

Higgs, the last federal inmate facing execution before President Donald Trump leaves office was sentenced to death for the killings of three women in a Maryland wildlife refuge in 1996. This 2015 photo provided by Shawn Nolan Chief, Capital Habeas UnitĬommunity Federal Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, shows Dustin Higgs at the Federal Prison in Terre Haute, Ind. 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. (AP) - The last federal inmate facing execution before President Donald 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.ĭustin Higgs, 48, who is scheduled to be executed on Friday at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, says nobody alleges he pulled the trigger.

Dustin higgs case