We are skeptical that the delegate’s letter will make much difference. But what message does it send if the government’s standards for executions are going to be so low? That life is cheap? Or that the bar for state-sanctioned killing is set low? Higgs is innocent or in any way to minimize the horrible crime. Justice demands more than to take turns painting one defendant and then the other as the principal culprit.Īdd to the mix the lame-duck Trump administration rush to kill, and every Marylander, not just its governor, should have serious reservations about whether justice is being served in this case. It is one thing for the government to bend the narrative in an average criminal proceedings, but it should not be acceptable when the death penalty is involved. This factual inconsistency likely influenced what amounted to “unfair and disparate” results. But that’s only the first of the problems with the matter.Īs Delegate Wilson points out, prosecutors changed their theory of the case in the trials of Higgs and Haynes not to discern the truth of what happened but to achieve maximum punishment for those individuals. Haynes, who actually pulled the trigger, was sentenced to life without parole. Higgs and co-defendant Willis Haynes murdered the women on a quiet stretch of Route 197 that just happened to be land owned by the federal Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Prince George’s County. It was prosecuted as a federal crime because Mr. Higgs was convicted of doing was truly despicable - the kidnapping and slayings of three young women, Tanji Jackson, 21 Tamika Black, 19 and Mishann Chinn, 23, in January of 1996. Jones, and nine state senators.ĭelegate Wilson notes that what Mr. The letter has been endorsed by no fewer than 38 delegates, including House Speaker Adrienne A. Larry Hogan asking him to call on the Trump administration to stop the Higgs execution. Wilson of Charles County, a former Prince George’s County assistant state’s attorney who has prosecuted his share of murderers, wrote Gov. It is a practice banned in most developed countries but still maintained in such human-rights-abusing nations as China and Iran.īut the Higgs case need not be a referendum on the death penalty, there are enough questions surrounding his treatment for even those Americans who continue to support executions to have doubts about whether it is appropriate here. is the only country is the Americas that still conducts executions. Life in prison without the possibility of parole is a far more just outcome for even the most heinous of offenders. and counting) in a similar manner or simply have not conducted an execution over the last 10 years (12 other states). Two-thirds of states have either abolished the death penalty (22 states and D.C. Maryland wisely outlawed the death penalty seven years ago. History has established repeatedly that it isn’t applied fairly and without racial bias nor is it an effective deterrent. This newspaper has long opposed capital punishment. One of those cases hits close to home: Dustin John Higgs, who is Black and was convicted 20 years ago in the shooting deaths of three women in Laurel is now scheduled to be killed on Jan. Where death sentences have become uncommon at the state level, the Trump administration is on track to set a modern day record for federal civilian executions with 10 in a five-month period this year - the most since the 1800s - and several more scheduled in the coming weeks. 20 when Joe Biden is sworn in as the nation’s 46th president. Department of Justice has been working hard to put eligible federal prisoners to death between now and Jan.
Under President Donald Trump’s directive, the U.S.
0 kommentar(er)
