The Biden campaign has spoken out against the federal death penalty, due in part to the amount of wrongfully convicted inmates who have been given these sentences. While executions are carried out every year on the state level, federal executions have been extremely rare until last year. Higgs’ convictions and sentences were affirmed on appeal nearly 17 years ago, and his initial round of collateral challenges failed nearly eight years ago, the statement added.Īttorney General William Barr resumed federal executions in July 2019 after a 17-year hiatus to bring “justice to victims of the most horrific crimes.” The federal government has authorized the executions of 13 federal death row inmates in about six months. In 2000, a Maryland jury found Higgs guilty of numerous federal offenses, including three counts of first-degree premeditated murder, three counts of first-degree felony murder, and three counts of kidnapping resulting in death, and unanimously recommended nine death sentences, which the court imposed, the statement said. (Photo by Wyandotte County Sheriff's Department via Getty Images) Wyandotte County Sheriff's Department via Getty Imagesįederal government executes the first woman in nearly 70 years Montgomery, of Melvern, Kansas, is accused of murdering the pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett, cutting the fetus from her body, and claiming the live baby as her own. KANSAS CITY, KS - In this handout photo provided by the Wyandotte County Sheriff's Department, Lisa Montgomery appears in a booking photo released Decemin Kansas City, Kansas. He ordered the women out of the vehicle, gave a gun to one of the friends, and said, “better make sure they’re dead.” The other man shot Black and Jackson in the chest and back, and shot Chinn in the back of the head, killing all three women, the statement said. Higgs offered the women a ride back to DC, but instead drove to a secluded area in the Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, the statement added. At the apartment, Jackson rebuffed an advance by Higgs and the women left. In January 1996, Higgs and two friends drove to Washington, DC, to pick up Black, Jackson, and Chinn, whom Higgs had invited to his apartment in Laurel, Maryland, according to a Department of Justice statement. “I do not think that God approves the death penalty for any crime … capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God,” King said. King’s oldest son, Martin Luther King III, wrote an op-ed on Thursday in The Washington Post calling for the end to executions by invoking his father’s words from 1957 when asked if God approves of the death penalty. Higgs’ execution was initially scheduled for the 92nd birthday of Rev. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Scott Olson/Getty Imagesįederal government executes Corey Johnson following prolonged legal fight He is scheduled to be the first federal prisoner put to death since 2003. Lee was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1996 killings in Arkansas of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter Sarah. TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA - JULY 13: A guard tower sits along a security fence at the Federal Correctional Complex where Daniel Lewis Lee is scheduled to be executed on Jin Terre Haute, Indiana.
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