Second Death Row Inmate Scheduled for Execution Tests Positive for COVID-19

Corey Johnson, a federal death row inmate who is scheduled to be executed next month, has tested positive for COVID-19, his legal team said Friday.

Johnson is one of three federal inmates on death row scheduled to be executed before President Donald Trump leaves office on January 20. Dustin Higgs, another federal death row inmate who is scheduled to be executed the day after Johnson, also tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this week. Both inmates are based at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute in Indiana.

Attorneys Donald Salzman and Ronald Tabak, both of whom represent Johnson, called for the federal government to halt scheduled executions due to virus-related concerns in a statement shared with Newsweek.

"Not surprisingly, given the growing outbreak on federal death row, Corey Johnson also has now tested positive for COVID-19," the attorneys' statement said. "The government must stop conducting executions during a COVID-19 outbreak in the facility, and we have called on the Department of Justice to withdraw Mr. Johnson's execution date.

"Mr. Johnson's diagnosis will substantially interfere with his attorneys' ability to have meaningful contact with him during these critical days before his scheduled execution, and 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," the statement said.

News of Johnson's positive COVID-19 test came one day after attorneys for Higgs announced he too tested positive for the virus. Higgs' January 15 execution is scheduled to be the final federal execution to occur during the Trump administration.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons COVID-19 data tracker, 222 inmates at Terre Haute tested positive for COVID-19 as of Friday, December 18. The federal facility is currently listed as fifth in the country in terms of the size of its COVID-19 outbreak, which Higgs' attorney attributed to recent executions conducted onsite.

In a Thursday statement about Higgs' diagnosis, attorney Shawn Nolan described federal executions as "superspreader" events.

"This is surely the result of the superspreader executions that the government has rushed to undertake in the heart of a global pandemic," Nolan's statement said. "Following the two executions that took place last week and one other two weeks prior, the COVID numbers at the federal prison in Terre Haute spiked enormously."

Attorney General Bill Barr announced Johnson's scheduled execution last month. A jury convicted Johnson in 1993 in the deaths of seven individuals in 1992, whom the U.S. Department of Justice said were murdered in connection with a drug trafficking conspiracy involving Johnson.

Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.

This story has been updated with additional information and background