The outbreak in the Terre Haute facility comes amidst sharp criticism that the federal government’s decision to carry out a rash of executions in the middle of the deadliest pandemic in more than a century flouted public health guidance and needlessly risked spreading the virus to the prison community and beyond. In a statement issued on December 18, Johnson’s legal team noted that his diagnosis will “interfere with his attorneys’ ability to have meaningful contact with him during these critical days before his scheduled execution.” Both Johnson and Higgs are seeking clemency based on significant legal issues in their cases, but their lawyers now cannot safely meet with them. Johnson and Higgs are seeking to delay their scheduled executions, arguing that the outbreak makes federal executions even more dangerous for prisoners, staff, lawyers, and others involved in the executions. The New York Times reported on Decemthat at least 14 federal death-row prisoners, and perhaps twice that number, were infected with the virus. Lawyers for Corey Johnson (pictured, left) and Dustin Higgs (pictured, below), announced that they had been notified by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) that their clients had contracted the coronavirus, amidst an outbreak of the disease at the prison in the wake of the federal executions performed there in November and December 2020. Two men scheduled for execution by the federal government in January 2021 are among the federal death-row prisoners who have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
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