Given the finality and severity of a death sentence, it is particularly important that judges consider and resolve challenges to an inmate's conviction and sentence. The Government now seeks certiorari before judgment, an extraordinary remedy that is to be granted only upon a showing that "the case is of such imperative public importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice." This Court's Rule 11. The Circuit then stayed the execution pending further order. The Fourth Circuit denied the Government's request to dispense with oral argument "in light of the novel legal issues presented" and set oral argument for January 27. The District Court ruled against the Government and the Government appealed. What are courts to do when faced with legal questions of this kind? Are they simply to ignore them? Or are they, as in this case, to "hurry up, hurry up"? That is no solution. None of these legal questions is frivolous. These are but a few of the many death-penaltyrelated questions (some technical, some not) that courts must consider, even though the result of this consideration is often delay-perhaps for many years. Does the Federal Government have to follow state requirements for how much advance notice an inmate receives for her execution? See Rosen v.
Dustin john higgs execution trial#
Can a defendant's second habeas challenge include a claim that his trial counsel was constitutionally inadequate where the defendant failed to raise that claim in his first habeas proceeding only because his first habeas counsel was also constitutionally inadequate? See Purkey, supra, at _ ( Breyer, J., dissenting from grant of vacatur) (slip op., at 3). Is a defendant's second habeas challenge to his death sentence subject to the demanding standard for successive challenges, even though Government conduct prevented him from being able to bring those claims in his first habeas petition? See Bernard v. Should a court apply contemporary diagnostic standards to determine whether an inmate is intellectually disabled at the time of his execution, such that the execution is unlawful? See Bourgeois v. _, _ (2020) ( Sotomayor, J., dissenting from grant of vacatur) (slip op., at 1).
Has an inmate demonstrated a sufficient likelihood that she is mentally incompetent-to the point where she will not understand the fact, meaning, or significance of her execution? See Montgomery v. To what extent does the Government's use of pentobarbital for executions risk extreme pain and needless suffering? See Lee, supra, at _ ( Breyer, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 2). He also argues that (for complex legal reasons) it is now too late for the Federal Government to obtain an order changing the state law designated to govern his execution from that of Maryland (which is where he was sentenced but which has since abolished the death penalty) to that of Indiana (which maintains the death penalty).Ĭonsider some of the other questions that the federal death penalty cases have raised. He argues, and the District Court agreed, that COVID-19 caused him significant lung damage and that, as a result, executing him by injection of pentobarbital will "subject to a sensation of drowning akin to waterboarding." In re Federal Bureau of Prisons' Execution Protocol Cases, No. The present case concerns an inmate infected with COVID-19 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. I agree with much of what Justice Sotomayor says in greater detail about many of these cases. The cases that have come before us provide several of those examples. I wrote in July that "the resumption of federal executions promises to provide examples that illustrate the difficulties of administering the death penalty consistent with the Constitution." Barr v. The Government's execution of Dustin Higgs tonight will be its thirteenth in six months. Lee's execution was the first federal execution in seventeen years. Last July the Federal Government executed Daniel Lee. Justice Kagan would deny the petition for writ of certiorari before judgment and the application. The Januorder of the Court of Appeals granting a stay is vacated. The application to vacate stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted. The Decemorder of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals with instructions to remand to the District Court for the prompt designation of Indiana under 18 U. S. C. The petition for writ of certiorari before judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is granted.
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