'Rush to kill convicts': US Supreme Court judges slam federal executions

Two liberal judges of US Supreme Court have lambasted Donald Trump ministration for carrying out 13th and final federal execution days before President leaves office. Trump’s Justice Department executed Dustin John Higgs by giving him lethal injection on January 15, just days before Joe Biden steps in with a promise to permanently end death penalties. Higgs who was convicted of killing three women in Maryland in 1996 h argued that he was incent and even filed an eleventh-hour clemency appeal.

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In aftermath, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer asserted that Trump ministration seemed to be in a 'rush to kill' all those convicted. In an order issued on Friday, January 16, Sotomayor excoriated execution writing that it was t justice. Appointed by Obama, Sotomayor said that she saw “an unprecedented rush” to kill condemned inmates in incumbent’s last days.

"To put that in historical context, federal government will have executed more than three times as many people in last six months than it h in previous six deces,” she wrote.

All 13 executions have taken place since July 2020. Breyer, a fellow liberal on nine-justice high court, was equally scathing, naming each of 13 executed prisoners and ting a lower court’s observation that Higgs h significant lung dam. In a blistering speech, he questioned execution protocols asking wher protocols risked extreme pain and suffering and pressured court into last-minute decisions on matters of life and death.

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'Higgs was a fine man'

On January 15, Trump ministration carried out its 13th and final federal execution of prisoner Dustin Higgs, accused of killing three women in Maryland in 1996. US government’s execution, which came in a span of six months, was prounced by federal court just four days ahe of president-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. In a statement to AP, an attorney for Higgs, Shawn lan defended Higgs as  “a fine man, a terrific far, bror, and nephew” who “spent deces on death row in solitary confinement helping ors around him, while working tirelessly to fight his unjust convictions.”