Another federal death row inmate in Indiana was executed early Saturday – the final execution under the Trump administration and the 13th since July.
Dustin John Higgs, convicted of ordering the murder of three women in Maryland in 1996, was given a lethal injection and was pronounced dead shortly after 1am in the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Higgs, 48, was put to death despite being sick with the coronavirus.
He is also the third inmate to be executed by the Trump administration this week.
In his last words, Higgs insisted that he was not guilty.
“I’d like to say I’m an innocent man,” he said. “I didn’t order the murders.”
On Tuesday, a federal judge delayed the execution of Higgs and Cory Johnson, a former drug trafficker who was executed on Thursday, due to ill health.
The Supreme Court cleared the way for Higgs’s execution late Friday.
Following the execution, Higg’s attorney, Shawn Nolan, said his client “worked tirelessly for decades to combat his unjust beliefs.”
“There was no reason to kill him, especially during the pandemic and when he himself was sick with COVID that he contracted because of these irresponsible super spread executions,” said Nolan.
Early Wednesday, Lisa Montgomery was executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute after years on federal death row for slicing up a pregnant woman and running away with the baby.
She became the first woman to be executed in the US since 1953.
President-elect Joe Biden has said he is against the death penalty.
With Post Wires