A Supreme Court decision allowing the government to sentence a federal prisoner to death – reversing an order from a lower court that had put the execution on hold – was published Friday night. Within hours of opinion 6-3, Dustin Higgs, 48, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead.
The majority position, which gave the green light for the use of the death penalty, did not please Minister Sonia Sotomayor.
In fierce dissent, she noted that, after 17 years without a single federal execution, the government has executed twelve people since July. She then listed each of them by name. “Today Dustin Higgs will become the thirteenth,” she wrote.
What Sotomayor called an “unprecedented run of federal executions” meant that the federal government “will have executed more than three times as many people in the past six months as in the previous six decades”.
Sotomayor was blunt in his assessment of the majority opinion: “This is not justice”.
In 2001, a federal court in Maryland sentenced Higgs to death for his role in the kidnapping and murder of three women. As Maryland banned the death penalty in 2013, the government sought that he be sentenced to death in Indiana, where he was incarcerated. After a district court denied the government’s request, the government took the case to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals scheduled the oral allegations for January 27, 2021. Not wanting to wait that long, the government asked the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court’s order – without any normal instructions or arguments. The majority opinion of the higher court allowed them to do so.
In his dissent, Sotomayor was concerned that the government had bypassed the Court of Appeals, as well as the uncertainty surrounding the use of new lethal injection cocktails.
Citing the record number of executions under Trump’s presidency, Sotomayor condemned what he called “this accelerated wave of executions”.
“This Court has consistently rejected credible claims by prisoners for relief. This court even intervened to suspend the suspensions of execution that the lower courts have instituted, thereby ensuring that these prisoner disputes never receive a meaningful discussion, ”she wrote. “The Court made these important decisions in response to emergency requests, with little opportunity for adequate information and considerations, often in just a few days or even hours.”
“There can be no instant justice in matters of life and death”
Of Puerto Rican descent, Sotomayor, 66, was named to the Supreme Court in 2009 by President Obama. Over the past few years, it has emerged as a strong critique of the Trump administration’s actions – as well as the decisions of its colleagues. She warned her fellow judges about the appearance of granting special favors to the Trump administration, and issued passionate dissensions in cases involving everything from DACA to Covid-19 relief.
In an institution known for its extreme reserve, Sotomayor’s views are sometimes notable for his openness. His list of calls to the names of people sentenced to death by the government can be seen as reminiscent of the “say their names” campaigns often invoked in cases of police brutality. Likewise, his criticism of the Court’s “dizzying schedule of executions” can be seen as a rebuke to judges who consider themselves pro-life.
“There can be no instant justice in matters of life and death,” wrote Sotomayor, citing what she saw as an inadequate examination given to the cases of the 13 people executed by the Trump administration. “Those that the government executes during this endeavor deserved more from this Court.”
President-elect Joe Biden opposes the federal death penalty, while a 2020 Gallup poll found that American support for the death penalty is less than at any time in nearly five decades.
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