Feds withheld info on positive virus cases following executions
Bureau of Prisons decided not to contact other media witnesses and did not attempt any contact tracing after at least two journalists tested positive
Loading the player.
At least two journalists tested positive for coronavirus after witnessing the Trump administration’s final three federal executions, but the Bureau of Prisons knowingly withheld the diagnoses from other media witnesses and did not perform any contact tracing, The Associated Press has learned.
The AP is not identifying the journalists, but has confirmed they both received positive coronavirus tests following the executions earlier this month at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
At least two journalists tested positive for coronavirus after witnessing the Trump administration's final three federal executions, but the Bureau of Prisons knowingly withheld the diagnoses from other media witnesses and did not perform any contact tracing, The Associated Press has learned.
The execution came 24 years after the 1996 Maryland triple murder for which he was convicted. It also came following an extended effort to reduce his sentence that began when Trump and then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr this past summer announced that, after 17 years without one, federal executions would resume.
Though his supporters did not deny Higgs’ involvement with the killings, they argued his punishment was more severe than the man who pulled the trigger, and disputed the assertion he ordered it to happen. The gunman, who is serving a life sentence, likewise disputed that assertion in a court filing.
Higgs received a lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court voted, 6-3, to vacate a stay of execution that likely would have extended argument over his sentence past inauguration day.
At 1:31 a.m., in the dark of night on Jan. 13, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery. She was the first woman executed by the federal government in almost 70 years and only the third woman executed by the Feds since 1900.For a short time in.