Both argued that lung damage caused by the virus increased the chances that they’d suffer illegal levels of pain if executed with pentobarbital. Both Dustin Higgs and Corey Johnson tested positive for COVID-19 on December 16, 2020. The justice next turned to the specific facts of the Higgs case. “After waiting almost two decades to resume federal executions, the Government should have proceeded with some measure of restraint to ensure it did so lawfully. “This is not justice,” Sotomayor snapped. Sotomayor continued with a reprimand for the Court’s hasty and unexplained decisions: Rather than waiting for courts to appropriately resolve the obvious legal questions, the Trump administration scheduled an “expedited spree of executions.” The Supreme Court’s majority, she wrote, shares the blame, as it ” has consistently rejected inmates’ credible claims for relief.” Sotomayor bluntly said, “the DOJ did not tread carefully,” although there was “deep legal uncertainty” due to changes in the drugs used for legal injections. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor slammed the Department of Justice for its actions since the Trump Administration lifted a previous 17-year moratorium on federal executions. To put that in historical context, the Federal Government will have executed more than three times as many people in the last six months than it had in the previous six decades.” Today, Dustin Higgs will become the thirteenth. “ Daniel Lee, Wesley Purkey, Dustin Honken, Lezmond Mitchell, Keith Nelson, William LeCroy Jr., Christopher Vialva, Orlando Hall, Brandon Bernard, Alfred Bourgeois, Lisa Montgomery, and, just last night, Corey Johnson. Justice Sotomayor began her dissent with a bold roll call of those executed by the federal government:
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