Respect Life

Even though “peaceful prayer and witness” will take place in a different format due to the ongoing pandemic, it “must and will continue this year” to mark the 48th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, said the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee.

Although the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution of Dustin Higgs Jan. 15, two justices made their objections known loud and clear in dissents that called into question the speed of these decisions and even the constitutionality of capital punishment.

Johnson, 52, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 11:34 p.m. EST Jan. 14 at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. His was the 12th federal execution since last summer.

After a flurry of court decisions, the Supreme Court reversed a pair of rulings from federal appeals courts that had put death-row inmate Lisa Montgomery’s execution on hold, and it denied two other last-minute requests to postpone the execution.