WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal inmate who would be executed just days before President-elect Joe Biden took office has tested positive for the coronavirus, his lawyer said Thursday.
The Bureau of Prisons informed Dustin’s lawyers John Higgs on Thursday that their client had tested positive for the virus, its attorney Devon Porter said in a court hearing Thursday afternoon.
The revelation comes amid concerns about an explosive number of coronavirus cases in the federal prison system and particularly in the Terre Haute, Indiana complex where the executions are being carried out. It is the only federal death row.
Higgs is scheduled to be executed on January 15, just five days before Joe Biden’s inauguration with the death penalty. Higgs is the last of those currently scheduled to be executed in a string of federal executions that began in July. The Trump administration will have executed more people in one year than any other administration in more than 130 years.
Higgs’ diagnosis marks the first known coronavirus case on federal death row and raises the possibility that his execution could be delayed by a judge if his condition worsens. His lawyers have previously expressed concern about the possibility that their client could contract the virus and present complex health issues prior to execution.
The Bureau of Prisons confirmed in a statement to The Associated Press that inmates on federal death row – known as the Special Confinement Unit – have tested positive for COVID-19.
The BOP also said a contact tracing investigation found that a unit employee had also tested positive for the virus. It said the employee who tested positive had no contact with staff members involved in executions in November or December.
The agency declined to provide additional information or identify the number of inmates who tested positive, but said inmates who test positive or show symptoms will be placed in isolation.
“This is certainly the result of the high-speed executions carried out by the government at the heart of a global pandemic. After the two executions that took place last week and one more two weeks before, COVID numbers in the federal prison in Terre Haute had skyrocketed, ”Shawn Nolan, one of Higgs’ attorneys, said in a statement. “Our client is now ill. We have asked the government to revoke the execution date and we will ask the courts to intervene if they don’t. “
As of Thursday, there were more than 300 inmates with confirmed cases of COVID-19 among inmates at FCC Terre Haute. The Bureau of Prisons said that “many of these inmates are asymptomatic or show mild symptoms.”
Two more executions are planned in the prison complex in the days before Higgs is due to be put to death.
Higgs was convicted of ordering the 1996 murders of three women, Tamika Black, Mishann Chinn, and Tanji Jackson, at a federal nature center near Beltsville, Maryland. Prosecutors say Higgs and two others kidnapped the women after Higgs became enraged because one of the women rejected his advances at the party.
Nolan said his client didn’t kill anyone, had ineffective lawyers, and didn’t deserve the death penalty. Higgs’s co-defendant, whom prosecutors said had committed the murders, was not sentenced to death.