In case you're wondering why some of these guys were tried in federal court for murder and received a federal death penalty:
In July 2002, Alfred Bourgeois arrived at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station for a delivery. While backing his truck up to a loading dock, his 2.5 year old daughter tipped over her training potty. Bourgeois became enraged and repeatedly slammed the back of her head into the truck’s window and dashboard, killing her. On March 16, 2004, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas found Bourgeois guilty of murder within the special territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and unanimously recommended a death sentence.
He probably got the death penalty because:
Bourgeois took temporary custody of his daughter and brought her with him on a trucking route. While on the trip, Bourgeois systematically abused and tortured her — including by punching her in the face, whipping her with an electrical cord, and burning the bottom of her foot with a cigarette lighter.
The toilet training thoroughly enraged this cretin.
Dustin John Higgs kidnapped and murdered three women — Tamika Black, 19; Tanji Jackson, 21; and Mishann Chinn, 23. One evening in January 1996, Higgs and two friends drove to Washington, D.C., to pick up Black, Jackson, and Chinn, whom Higgs had invited to his apartment in Laurel, Maryland. At the apartment, Jackson rebuffed an advance by Higgs and the women left.
Higgs offered the women a ride back to Washington, D.C., but instead drove to a secluded area in the Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge, ordered the women out of the vehicle, gave a gun to one of the friends, and said, “better make sure they’re dead.” The other man shot Black and Jackson in the chest and back, and shot Chinn in the back of the head, killing all three women.
A lot of serious crimes are just so inane and pointless. Sad and pathetic.
Rather arbitrary that the gunman got life in prison without parole for killing the 3 women, but Higgs got death for telling his friend to kill them (and supplying the murder weapon).
For the most part, people who get the death penalty tend to have incompetent legal counsel. And their ineptitude can hamper appeals, so their incompetence can get baked in.
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