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The US Department of Justice Fast Tracked Executions This Year to Get Some Extra Killing Done

Sojourner’s Truth Staff

As President Donald Trump's days in the White House wind down, his administration is racing through a string of federal executions.

 

Five executions were scheduled after Election Day and before President-elect Joe Biden's 20 January inauguration - breaking with a 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition.

 

Trump will be the country's most prolific execution president in more than a century, overseeing the executions of 13 death row inmates since July of this year, including the following four Black men

Brandon Bernard, convicted of kidnapping and murder, was executed by lethal injection on December 10. Bernard, who is Black, was only 18 years old when he committed crimes that resulted in the deaths of a young white married couple in 1999. But five of the nine surviving jurors who supported the death penalty at the time now believe it is inappropriate. Even Angela Moore, the federal prosecutor who helped put Bernard on death row, wrote an op-ed in the Indianapolis Star making a case for why the federal government should let him live.

“I always took pride in representing the United States as a federal prosecutor, and I think executing Brandon would be a terrible stain on the nation’s honor,” Moore wrote.

During his time in prison, Bernard has been a model prisoner, mentoring at-risk youth. “Having learned so much since 2000 about the maturation of the human brain and having seen Brandon grow into a humble, remorseful adult fully capable of living peacefully in prison, how can we say he is among that tiny group of offenders who must be put to death?” Moore wrote.

Alfred Bourgeois was on death row for torturing and beating his two-year-old daughter to death. He was executed on 11 December. An earlier execution date was stayed by a federal judge due to evidence from Bourgeois' legal team showing he had an intellectual disability. This ruling was overturned in October.

Cory Johnson was convicted for the murder of seven people, related to his involvement with the drug trade in Richmond, Virginia. Johnson's legal team has argued that he suffers from an intellectual disability, related to physical and emotional abuse he experienced as a child. His execution is scheduled for 14 January.

Dustin John Higgs was convicted in the 1996 kidnapping and murder of three young women in the Washington, DC area. Higgs did not kill any of his victims. His co-defendant Willis Haynes did. The Justice Department argues that Higgs coerced his friend Haynes into committing the crime.

But Haynes, who was sentenced to life in prison, confirmed through a signed affidavit that Higgs did not coerce him, saying, “the prosecution’s theory of our case was bullshit. Dustin didn’t threaten me. I was not scared of him. Dustin didn’t make me do anything that night or ever.”
 


Brandon Bernard


Alfred Bourgeois


Cory Johnson


Dustin John Higgs

On the Other Hand

Four Blackwater (a private security contractor) guards — Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard — were convicted by a federal jury in 2014 after a lengthy trial that saw some 30 witnesses travel from Iraq to testify against them. Prosecutors accused the men of illegally unleashing "powerful sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers on innocent men, women and children."


Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough

The jury found Nick Slatten guilty of first-degree murder, and three other guards (Slough, Liberty and Heard) guilty of all three counts of voluntary manslaughter and using a machine gun to commit a violent crime. On April 13, 2015, Slatten was sentenced to life in prison, while the other three guards were sentenced to 30 years in prison.

On August 4, 2017, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned Slatten's murder conviction and ordered the other defendants to be re-sentenced. A new trial was also recommended for Slatten, on the grounds that it was unjustifiable to try him with his co-defendants, and that he should have been tried separately. In December 2018, Slatten was once again convicted of murder by a jury and on August 14, 2019, again sentenced to life in prison.

According to prosecutors, the four – White males – were among seven Blackwater employees who opened fire in the Nisour Square traffic circle in Baghdad, killing 17 people.

An FBI investigation found 14 of the deaths unjustified, according to rules of engagement for private security contractors in Iraq. Slatten was accused of firing the first shots.

Blackwater said its convoy came under attack, and defense attorneys said in court that witness accounts were fabricated. But witnesses testified that the contractors opened fire without provocation.

On December 22, 2020, all four convicted men received federal pardons from Trump.

The White House said their pardons were supported by a number of members of Congress along with Pete Hegseth, the conservative Fox News host who is an ally of the president.

The private security firm was founded by Erik Prince, the brother of Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos.
 

 

   
   


Copyright © 2019 by [The Sojourner's Truth]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 12/31/20 12:07:20 -0500.


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