Use of the death penalty in America may be ending

IT WAS A Trump bump that was years in the making. Since July, after a 17-year hiatus, 13 prisoners on federal death row have been put to death. Dustin Higgs, who was convicted for his part in the murder of three women in 1996, could turn out to be the last for a long time, though. He died by lethal injection on January 16th, a day after the Supreme Court ruled that his execution could go ahead. In a cross dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted an “unprecedented rush of federal executions” in the past six months: three times as many inmates were put to death in that period as in the preceding six decades.