US Federal Executions Are Causing COVID-19 Outbreaks
More executions occurred during the last 3 months than over the last 57 years, the ACLU reports.
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According to American federal death penalty statutes, it takes at least 314 people to kill one person.
In addition to the prisoner, federal law requires several different groups of people to be present at an execution. 24 designated witnesses must be in attendance, along with 40 Bureau of Prisons (BOP) staff, 50 national BOP staff with “special operations” training, as well as 200 local prison staff (i.e., contractors). The prison usually requests that US Marshals and local law enforcement attend the proceedings, although there isn’t a stipulation that a certain number of officials from those groups are represented.
When Trump announced in July that federal executions would resume at the US Penitentiary Terre Haute in Indiana, he nor the BOP announced changes to the attendee requirements in response to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Six people have been executed between that announcement and September 23rd. The Terre Haute Penitentiary is part of the larger Terre Haute Corrections Complex. The Penitentiary is a high-security facility and the only US Penitentiary with a death chamber. The few prisoners on federal death row are held at this Penitentiary. There is also the medium-security, Terre Haute Federal Correctional Institution, and a minimum-security satellite camp on-site.
As a result of carelessness on the part of the federal government and some local prison staff’s disregard for social distancing procedures, the Terre Haute Penitentiary and Federal Correctional Institution have experienced large outbreaks compared to the total size of the complex’s inmate population.
The first three executions, which occurred back-to-back on July 14th, 16th, and 17th, saw an increase in out-of-area visitors not only to the complex but Vigo County, where Terre Haute is located. A few weeks after these executions, Vigo County’s Health Department recorded a surge in county-wide cases. Most of these new cases were connected back to the complex in some way.
The ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the BOP last month to figure out why Vigo County saw this initial surge. BOP documents indicate that one BOP officer frequently interacted with other staff and inmates without a mask while infected with COVID-19 around this period, only later finding out that he tested positive for the virus.
Moreover, BOP also implemented a risky quarantine plan this summer. Staff with positive COVID-19 cases were allowed to return to work after experiencing 10 days of no symptoms, bucking the 14-day recommendation.
Note that prisons are often crowded and purposely difficult to ventilate as a design feature. Corrections officials obviously don’t want inmates to find ways to escape. The Coronavirus will easily spread in these conditions and there’s not a lot prisoners can do to socially distance from each other.
As of September 23rd, 3 Terre Haute Complex inmates have died from COVID-19. The Penitentiary has recorded 77 positive tests from the 730 tests it has administered among its population of 1,303 inmates. The Institution has recorded 132 positive tests from the 556 tests it has administered among its population of 1,094 inmates. At the end of August, two Institution staff also tested positive for the virus.
Looking at the above data and Vigo County’s total 1,789 positive cases, we can determine that Complex inmates account for around 11% of county-wide cases.
The outbreaks at Terre Haute are appalling on a few fronts.
For one, the July announcement's timing indicates that the executions are likely a ploy by President Trump to portray himself as the “law and order” candidate ahead of the Presidential Election in November. Federal executions are very uncommon; again, there have only been 5 federal executions over the last 57 years until July. Pursuing these executions all at one time is really just a way of making news for Trump.
He pursues this despite findings from a Gallup poll which shows that the death penalty's approval among Americans has hit an all-time low. Only 54% of Americans believe that the death penalty is “morally acceptable,” while around 71% believed it was “morally acceptable” in 2006.
If Trump followed this polling, he would likely choose to take more centrist stances on capital punishment. But by proceeding with numerous executions, more than other “law and order” Presidents have done in the past, he is trying to appeal to his base.
Trumpists like to assign moral value to the people around them. Within the hierarchy of American society, prisoners are in the most despicable group. A significant proportion of America’s prison population is composed of people of color. There’s also a persistent idea in American culture that felons can’t be reformed. Essentially, to the voters who like “law and order” policies, prisoners are sub-human.
We see this in places like Florida regarding the debate around their 2018 state constitutional amendment granting felons the right to vote. Felons currently have to pay back tens of thousands of dollars in fees before they can earn back the right. It is already difficult for felons to secure employment after imprisonment, so affording these payments is usually impossible. Recently, Michael Bloomberg made headlines for paying $16 million to the state to reinstate the rights of 32,000 Florida felons. But we can’t wait for billionaires to fix a huge issue like voter disenfranchisement.
Both an institutional movement against the incarcerated population and rising apathy among a small group of supporters of capital punishment have created a harrowing situation for a small, Indiana city. Add to those forces the growing mistrust of officials disseminating facts, and suddenly some officials are OK with putting the people they’re supposed to monitor and protect at risk despite knowing about widely accepted, public health recommendations concerning group gatherings and masking.
I think you can be pro or anti-death penalty and still see to some effect what is happening here: death is now begetting more death. Because officials have such little regard for the inmates on death row, inmates who’ve committed lesser crimes are also being impacted by this behavior. They have died at no fault of their own. But staff will keep ignoring social distancing measures in stuffy, poorly ventilated buildings. Ultimately, the unpredictable nature of Coronavirus demands that we treat prisoners with the same amount of dignity as we do average people.
