WASHINGTON (AP) – Just days before President-elect Joe Biden took office, a federal prisoner was determined to have tested positive for coronavirus, his lawyer said Thursday.
Dustin John Higgs’s attorney at the Bureau Pr Prison was informed Thursday that his client had tested positive for the virus, his attorney, Devon Port, said during a court hearing Thursday afternoon.
The revelations come amid concerns about the number of cases of coronavirus outbreaks in the federal prison system, and especially in the Terre Houte complex in Indiana, where executions are carried out. It’s the only federal death row.
Higgs is due to be hanged on January 15, just five days before Biden’s inauguration. Higgs is currently the last of a number of executions in the federal execution series that began in July. The Trump administration has executed more people in 130 years than any other administration in one year.
Higgs’ diagnosis marks the first known coronavirus case on the federal death row and increases the likelihood that his execution could be delayed by a judge if his condition worsens. His lawyers had previously expressed concern about the possibility of his client contracting the virus and could raise complex health issues before execution.
A statement from the Bureau Pr Prison’s Associated Press confirmed that inmates on the federal death penalty – known as the Special Criminal Unit – had tested positive for COVID-19.
The BOP also said that the contact investigation revealed that an employee working in the unit also tested positive for the virus. It said the employee who tested positive had no contact with any staff members involved in the 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 tested positive or showed symptoms would be placed in isolation.
“This is actually the result of the execution of the super spreader that the government has undertaken at the center of the global epidemic. There has been a sharp rise in the number of coyotes in Terry Haute’s federal prison since two executions last week and another two weeks ago, ” Higgs’ lawyer Shawn Nola said in a statement. “Now our client is sick. We have asked the government to withdraw the date of execution and ask the courts to intervene if they do not take action. ”
As of Thursday, there were more than 300 inmates at FCC Terre Haute with confirmed cases of COVID-19. “Many of these inmates show vague or mild symptoms,” Bureau Prf Jails said.
Higgs is due to be sentenced to two more executions in a prison complex days before his execution.
Higgs was convicted in 1996 of ordering the murder of three women, Tamica Black, Mission Chin and Tanji Jackson, at the Federal Wildlife Sanctuary near Beltville, Maryland. The plaintiff says Higgs and two others abducted the woman after she became angry at Higgs, as one woman reprimanded him for further action at the party.
Nola said her client has not killed anyone, is an ineffective attorney and does not deserve the death penalty. Higgs’ co-defendant, who prosecutors said committed the murders, was not sentenced to death.
Higgs will be cut off from the outside world more than ever before from a positive coronavirus test, and will not be able to meet with relatives when infected during what may be the last weeks of his life, Michael Zussman said. And Washington Washington, D.C. In the area, which has had regular conversations with Higgs for weeks.
If Higgs’ execution date has been postponed for more than five days due to his diagnosis, he will move the execution date to the early days of Biden’s presidency. Democrats have spoken out against the death penalty and once sworn in will have the option of declaring immediate stability over the federal death penalty.
“Hope is an eternal spring,” said Zoosman. “But I’m not very sure Trump will do the right thing,” he said, ordering Higgs to delay his execution date.
Zoosman last received an email from Higgs on Wednesday afternoon in which Higgs did not mention a positive virus test. Isolation or lockdown means there is no prisoner access to telephones or computers, he said.
Higgs spent most of his time on the death penalty in recent weeks reading Islamic reading material, Zuzman said.
“Having a date with death is mental anguish,” Zuzman added. “The only way to deal with it is with spirituality.”
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Tarme reported from Chicago.
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