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.
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…
