As the ever-increasing spread of coronavirus infection across the U.S. brings with it a wave of death, it is attacking a section of the population that has been particularly forgotten: prisoners in state and federal prisons. The Marshall Project has been monitoring resident issues and deaths since mid-March.
The nonprofit news agency, in coordination with the Associated Press, reports that at least 276,107 people in prison had tested positive for the illness, a 10 percent increase over the previous week , much higher than the previous peak in early August. Given that testing for the virus is limited, and not all cases have been reported, there is no doubt that this number is much higher.
The following number of new cases were reported last week:
- California: nearly 6,000
- Federal Bureau of Prisons: more than 3,000
- Michigan and Pennsylvania: more than 2,000 each
- Arizona and Nevada: more than 1,000 each
These staggering figures show that the elite’s policy of “herd protection” is even more intense within the prison walls, where prisoners are closely confined and social distance is almost negligible. -made. Like workers deployed in cars, meat processing and other factories, the lives of prisoners are seen as a cost. In addition, prisoners are viewed as a drain on the resources of the capitalist state, which receive limited monetary value from their incarceration.
There have been 33,410 federal prison cases, more than one state prison system, and 175 deaths, the second only to Florida, which saw 189. The number of federal cases was spurred by the Trump administration’s effort to reduce enforce as many federal prisoners as possible. before Joe Biden is sworn in as president on Jan. 20. Biden has said he will move to end his federal execution.
The Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General William Barr, is on track to execute 10 executives on Trump’s way out of office, more than has happened over the past three decades. Barr, who headed the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) last year to reinstate capital penalties for federal prisoners after what was a necessary moratorium on federal execution, will leave his post before Christmas, washing up his hands of the last three deaths recorded in January.
One of those prisoners is Dustin John Higgs, 48, who is expected to be executed on Jan. 15 in connection with the abduction and killing of three women in Maryland in 1996. The BOP contacted Higgs’ lawyers Thursday that their client had been positive for the coronavirus. The news comes amid prisoner concerns about an explosive number of cases of the virus at the facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the same federal death toll resides.
After the November 19 execution of federal prisoner Orlando Hall, 49, it was reported that eight prison staff who had taken part in the execution at the Terre Haute facility had contracted COVID-19 . Despite this, five of those employees were expected to be working at the time of the execution of Brendon Bernard, 40, on Dec. 12, and Alfred Bourgeois, 55, the next day.
Another federal resident of Terre Haute, James Lee Wheeler, tested positive for the virus on Nov. 17. He was assessed by medical staff at the prison on November 25 for reduced oxygen absorption on November 15 and transferred to a local hospital for further treatment.
Wheeler’s long-term, preexisting health conditions put him at greater risk for developing severe COVID-19 disease. On Dec. 9, he was pronounced dead by hospital staff. Wheeler, 78, was serving a life sentence after being convicted in Florida and Ohio for obstruction of justice, racism and drug charges.
James Frazier, 79, the oldest resident of Ohio, died Nov. 19 from what appeared to be a coronavirus outbreak. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for the murder of Mary Stevenson, 49, of Toledo. One hundred and eighteen Ohio prisoners have died because of COVID-19, according to Project Marshall, the fourth largest death toll after Florida, the federal government and Texas. More than 8,000 Ohio residents were captured.
On November 14, 2017, authorities found Frazier in his cell at the Chillicothe Correctional Institute after what doctors reported was multiple strokes, according to Frazier’s lawyers. He was later transferred to a local hospital.
Frazier’s lawyers filed a notice of complaint in Lucas County Common Pleas Court to stop his execution, which was scheduled for October 20, 2021. They said he was suffering from depression and was not he knew a lot where he was.
In addition to the execution of Higgs on Jan. 15, three other federal deaths are scheduled before Prayer Day, Jan. 20.
Lisa Marie Montgomery, 52, is expected to be executed Jan. 12. She was executed on Dec. 8 to stay for a while after her lawyers signed a contract with COVID-19, possibly from visiting her in prison, and she was unable to prepare her acting petition. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss signed a court order restraining the federal government from executing him before the end of the year.
Montgomery was convicted and sentenced to death for a 2007 Missouri woman who was eight months pregnant and giving birth to her unborn child, who survived. Sandra Babcock, one of the lawyers representing Montgomery against Barr, said, “Mrs. Montgomery’s case provides compelling reasons to be clear, including her history as a victim of gang rape, incest and child sexual trafficking, as well as her serious mental illness. ”
If Montgomery’s execution goes ahead, it will be the first federal death of a woman in nearly seven decades. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed by electrocution on June 19, 1953. The framing and accusation were raised at the height of the Cold War under the Espionage Act of 1917 on conspiracy charges of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. .
Cory Johnson, 52, is scheduled to be executed Jan. 14 for killing seven people in 1992 as part of a drug trafficking plot based in Richmond, Virginia. Johnson’s lawyers argue that he has an intellectual disability and must present evidence of this in court.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the death penalty in 1976 after a brief hiatus, the U.S. has executed 1,529 people, including 13 federal prisoners. These include people with mental disabilities, foreign nationals denied their console rights, individuals executed for crimes committed while young children, and women.
On November 27, the Department of Justice announced a new regulation that will allow the federal government to execute any form of lethal injection “or in any other manner mandated by state law in the the sentence was imposed or pronounced by a court ”in accordance with federal death penalty laws.
State killing methods in the 28 states that still carry the death penalty on the books include lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging and the firing squad.