The U.S. government on Saturday carried out the 13th and final federal execution under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The execution comes days before Trump’s successor Joe Biden takes office with a promise to try to end the death penalty.
Dustin Higgs, 48, was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m. EST (0623 GMT), the federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement.
The convict’s execution was aftermath of a late-night Supreme Court ruling which cleared the way for the execution to proceed.
Since resuming federal executions last year after a 17-year hiatus, Trump, a long-time proponent of capital punishment, has overseen more executions than any U.S. president since the 19th century.
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Higgs was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for his role in the kidnapping and murder of three women on a federal wildlife reserve in Maryland in 1996.
The victims were Tanji Jackson, Tamika Black and Mishann Chinn.
His accomplice, Willis Haynes, who confessed to shooting the women, was sentenced to life in prison in a separate trial.
In his final words, Higgs sounded calm and defiant at the Justice Department’s death chamber in its prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, a reporter who served as a media witness said.
Some of his victims’ relatives attended, and a sister of Jackson released a statement, although the Bureau of Prisons did not share the sister’s name.
“When the day is over, your death will not bring my sister and the other victims back,” the statement said. “This is not closure, this is the consequence of your actions,” she added.
Higgs’ older sister, Alexa Cave, could be heard sobbing uncontrollably from a separate witness room as Higgs died.
Shawn Nolan, one of Higgs’ lawyers, said in a statement:
“The government completed its unprecedented slaughter of 13 human beings tonight by killing Dustin Higgs, a Black man who never killed anyone, on Martin Luther King’s birthday,
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“Dustin spent decades on death row in solitary confinement helping others around him, while working tirelessly to fight his unjust convictions.”
The majority conservative Supreme Court’s ruling was consistent with earlier decisions.
It had dismissed all orders by lower courts delaying federal executions since they were resumed last year.
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