Two death row inmates on Thursday looked to the Supreme Court in a last-ditch attempt to prevent themselves from becoming the final Trump-era executions.
Cory Johnson, a Virginia man convicted of connection to bloody gang violence, appealed to the high court late Thursday afternoon after two lower appeals courts vacated a stay on his sentence. The other man, Dustin Higgs, who was convicted of a triple homicide in Maryland, said on Thursday he plans to appeal to the Supreme Court after unsuccessfully pursuing a stay on his own sentence.
Johnson is set to be executed late Thursday afternoon. Higgs will receive his punishment on Friday. Theirs are likely to be the last of a spate of executions that the government resumed in 2019 under former Attorney General William Barr’s direction. The federal government had not previously executed anyone since 2003.
Both Johnson and Higgs, who have been on death row for decades, secured stays this week on their sentences while they were suffering from the coronavirus. Johnson also appealed on the grounds of his mental condition. These stays were overturned, however, by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday.
If the two men secure stays from the Supreme Court, there is a possibility that neither one of them will face the death penalty. President-elect Joe Biden came out against the practice during his campaign and promised that he would use his time in office to end it.
The Supreme Court earlier this week heard several appeals from Lisa Montgomery, a Missouri woman who attempted to get a halt on her sentence. Montgomery, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing a pregnant woman from Missouri, as well as claiming the child as her own, told the court that her mental condition should preclude her from the death penalty.
The court decided against Montgomery, making her the first woman in 67 years to be executed by the federal government.
