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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.”
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