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Good evening from the FCC Terre Haute Training Center. I’m here for the 13th time since last summer. Tonight the Trump DOJ plans to execute Dustin Higgs. It’s the third scheduled killing this week & the last of the federal execution spree.
The execution time was pushed back in anticipation of another long night. The killings of Lisa Montgomery on Tuesday and of Corey Johnson last night ended up going very late, into the next morning. These are the vans that take media witnesses to the penitentiary.
The flag is no longer flying at half-staff. It’s darker here than it looks in these photos, and it’s cold. There was snow and hail on and off today.
BOP spokesperson Scott Taylor briefed non-witnessing press earlier. He said that one of the families of the victims plans to address reporters after the execution. Another plans to issue a written statement. It’s not clear who, or whether they will witness.
This is my story about the case. Higgs was not the triggerman in the murder of Tamika Black, Tanji Jackson and Mishann Chinn—the government concedes this. The man who was the shooter later said the prosecution’s theory was “bullshit.” https://theintercept.com/2021/01/14/dustin-higgs-federal-executions-death-penalty/
My story looks at his innocence claim. But it’s also about the time & place in which he was convicted, when the federal government was looking to restart executions, following the 1994 crime bill. Higgs was one of the early residents of federal death row. He arrived in Jan 2001.
Finally, the story is about Higgs’s sister Alexa, who has maintained her relationship w/ him for the past 20 years. Until this week she had not seen him in person in that time. She visited him Wed & Thurs, in between the government’s killing of Lisa Montgomery and Corey Johnson.
I haven’t had much time to reflect on these past months. I first came to Terre Haute to do reporting in the fall of 2019 and the trips have become a bit of a blur since. But what I return to again and again are the families of the condemned and the myriad cruelties we do not see.
I've never been approved as a media witness, despite applying many times. I've never gotten an answer from BOP about how they choose. Whatever the process, several reporters have witnessed over and over again, including Adam, the first reporter I met here. https://twitter.com/AdamPinsker/status/1350241670000996352
Adam witnessed the first 3 executions in July. Like this week, they all happened back to back. And much like this week, the first 2 were overnight, confusing, and frankly lawless ordeals. I covered that surreal first week here. https://theintercept.com/2020/08/02/federal-executions-indiana-trump-coronavirus/
Adam is witnessing again tonight, along with @TribStarLisa, who has witnessed all but one. On the day after the executions, I try to pick up a copy of her paper, where she's also reported about the ongoing Covid outbreak at the federal penitentiary. https://www.tribstar.com/news/covid-19-soars-at-terre-haute-federal-prison-complex/article_57a3ad58-4464-11eb-b444-0702db9b765d.html
Update via another reporter who has been a media witness many, many times. The back & forth to the training center while litigation plays out has become part of the ritual. For the families, it's an absolutely wretched and traumatic wait. https://twitter.com/mtarm/status/1350248508771753985
One key legal challenge right now stems from last night's execution of Corey Johnson & this tweet from another repeat witness to the federal executions, @georgehale. He called out BOP for flouting Covid precautions--in flagrant violation of a court order. https://twitter.com/georgehale/status/1350136221893341190
Before Covid infected both Corey & Dustin (and more than half the men on federal death row according to my sources), Orlando Hall's spiritual advisor Yusuf Ahmed Nur tested positive for Covid after accompanying Hall in November. He recovered. Tonight he will be with Dustin.
I've corresponded with Dustin for about a month and a half. As I explained last night about Corey, we were able to keep emailing even as the rest of the row was locked down. He was sick, but his bigger concern was not being able to receive visits from family until he was cleared.
He was especially upset over a canceled weekend visit w/ his kids, writing: "They talking about they are doing this for my well being and the well being of my family. I will tell you what is best for my well being and my families is if the stop the execution date and let me live"
Although Dustin still had symptoms (and hadn't been retested), he was medically cleared on 12/27. Not long afterward, he sent me an upbeat email. "I got to see my children," he wrote. "I had a beautiful visits. I had an opportunity to really have good conversations with them."
I wasn't able to ask Dustin about his visits with Alexa this week. But he's written at length about her. "My sister really is a amazing women. I tell her that all the time. I don't think that I would have kept my sanity without...her unwavering support, love and patience."
One day after I first talked to Alexa, Dustin wrote to me feeling concerned about how I might portray his mother. She died when he was young and had been a victim of abuse. "I just do not want to participate in dragging my mother suffering back into the public view," he wrote.
He said he "would much rather allow my mother to rest in peace." I've thought a lot about how we write about families in this system. Their most painful histories appear in case files. Those details can provide crucial context but they are also retraumatizing when widely shared.
At the Dollar General, news has gotten to the activists that the US Supreme Court is allowing the execution to proceed. They always keep a look out for the white vans carrying the witnesses.
They have also built a fire. Bill Breeden is here, less than 24 hours after he accompanied Corey Johnson as his spiritual advisor. As you may have seen from my thread last night, he was traumatized by the execution, in part because they didn’t let him read Corey’s last statement.
It’s important to mention that, like Corey did in his last statement last night, the activists here keep the names of the victims present in their vigils. Their prayers include their names and their families, every time. Tonight there are roses for the victims
The activists have crossed the street toward the penitentiary to stand in opposition to the executions at the entrance.
Reciting the names of the victims
“What do we want? ABOLITION”
Abe Bonowitz of @DeathPenaltyAct declares it a crime scene.
Like a voice in the wilderness. Grateful for her. But so angry at this court and this system. https://twitter.com/helenprejean/status/1350303646257274901
If I'm honest, I've stopped paying attention to the litigation on nights like this. On one hand, it's daunting; too fast-moving, often technical. Easier to let the experts break it down. But I've also just stopped expecting SCOTUS to do anything but wave these killings through.
The prosecutors who handled these cases didn't want to talk for the most part. But some did. And what bothered me wasn't so much their defense of their work (although that was sometimes eye-opening). It was the ones who didn't even remember the cases or know about the executions.
I have interviewed at least one prosecutor over the years who feels an obligation to attend the executions of people they send to death row. Not here. They have moved on, retired. It was a career. Meanwhile families on both sides are suffering continued trauma & lack of closure.
In Dustin's case, I wrote to the former US Attorney for the District of MD, Lynne Battaglia, as well as one of the AUSAs who prosecuted the case, Sandra Wilkinson. I got nothing from Battaglia, now retired. I got a late "no comment" from a DOJ PIO. She included the email history:
Sandra Wilkinson, who is still with the DOJ, had written: "Same reporter who contacted Lynne. I will ignore."
In my story, I quoted the Washington Post's account of how Wilkinson urged jurors to send Dustin to die: She “displayed a large rock and likened it to the emotional weight borne by relatives of the victims, a burden she said would be lightened if Higgs were to be put to death.”
I mostly wasn't able to reach relatives of the victims. I did get a "no thank you" from the mother of Mishann Chinn after my story went up. But by Wilkinson's own logic, these families have carried this "rock" for 20+ years. And we all know the burden doesn't just dissipate now.
A statement from one of the families. We do not know his connection to the victims and he did not give his name.
Written statement from the sister of Tanji Jackson. It addresses Dustin. “When we received the news that you were given a date, it brought up mixed emotions. On one hand, I felt we were finally going to get justice, but on the other, I felt sad for your family.”
