Trump administration executes two more death row prisoners in pre-Inauguration Day killing spree
The US government executed two prisoners Thursday night and early Saturday as the Trump administration continued its killing spree in advance of the inauguration of Joe Biden as president on January 20. The US Supreme Court allowed both executions to proceed.
Federal death row inmate Corey Johnson, 52, was executed Thursday night at the federal prison facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. His execution was the second time in less than five weeks that the federal government executed a likely intellectually disabled death row prisoner without giving the inmate a judicial review to determine eligibility for the death penalty.
Since June 28, 2004
January 16, 2021
SCOTUS clear way for 13th federal execution in six months, prompting extended dissents from Justices Breyer and Sotomayor
The now familiar federal execution drama has now played out one more time, this time around with Dustin Higgs securing a stay in lower courts only to see the Supreme Court allowing the execution to go forward. Notably, with this last scheduled federal execution, Justice Beyer and Justice Sotomayor each sought to say their piece in extended dissents. Justice Breyer s fourt-page dissent starts this way:
Last July the Federal Government executed Daniel Lee. Lee’s execution was the first federal execution in seventeen years. The Government’s execution of Dustin Higgs tonight will be its thirteenth in six months. I wrote in July that “the resumption of federal executions promises to provide examples that illustrate the difficulties of administering the death penalty consistent with the Constitution.”