Published on: Saturday, December 19, 2020

At least two federal prisoners scheduled to be executed in the president's final days in office have tested positive for COVID-19, ramping up demands that their executions be called off in light of an outbreak of the virus on federal death row (article available here).

Corey Johnson, 52, is scheduled to be put to death on January 14, 2021. Dustin Higgs, 48, is set to be killed a day later. Lisa Montgomery’s execution date is January 12, but because she is the only woman on federal death row, she is held at a separate prison in Texas and would need to be brought to Indiana to be killed.

The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that “a number of inmates have tested positive for COVID-19” in recent weeks at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. As of Thursday, there were more than 300 inmates with confirmed cases at FCC Terre Haute. Attorneys for Messrs. Johnson and Higgs say the spread of the coronavirus at the facility, including an outbreak among members of an execution team in November, underscores the danger of permitting executions that require close contact and can involve hundreds of people.

Johnson’s attorneys said his infection would make it difficult to interact with him in the critical days leading up to his scheduled execution, adding: “The widespread outbreak on the federal death row only confirms the reckless disregard for the lives and safety of staff, prisoners, and attorneys alike.” “If the government will not withdraw the execution date, we will ask the courts to intervene,” they said.

The Trump administration has executed 10 people by lethal injection since July 2020, the most federal executions in a single year since 1896. It has also killed more inmates than all the states put together. Advocates have argued for months that such executions are COVID-19 super spreader events; they typically involve hundreds of people—including the defendant’s family, the victim’s family, religious figures, the execution team and the media—traveling to the federal prison in Terre Haute, witnessing the execution and heading home.

After witnessing Orlando Cordia Hall’s execution on Nov. 19, his spiritual advisor, Yusuf Ahmed Nur, tested positive for COVID-19. In response to a lawsuit, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) recently acknowledged that eight members of Hall’s roughly 40-person execution team tested positive for COVID-19 shortly afterward.