A federal prisoner scheduled for execution Jan. 15 has been infected with COVID, news sources reported Friday.
The attorneys for Dustin John Higgs, whose capital punishment will be carried out just five days before death penalty opponent and president-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, confirmed the inmate's infection during a court hearing Thursday.
The disclosure comes in the wake of worries about an uncontrolled rise in cases of the disease in U.S. federal prisons and specifically at the facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the executions are conducted.
"This is surely the result of the superspreader executions that the government has rushed to carry out in the heart of a global pandemic," CNN quoted one of Higgs' lawyers, Shawn Nolan, as saying in a statement.
Higgs' lawyers asked the U.S. government to withdraw the execution date after he tested positive for COVID. The 55-year old death row inmate is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Jan. 15 for ordering a triple homicide in 1996.
It is the last of five federal executions set to take place during the outgoing Trump administration. Brandon Bernard was the first to be executed last week.
Higgs' lawyers have previously said they were worried their client would be infected with the disease and could present more complicated health issues prior to execution day.
No U.S. state has authorized an execution since July, and many executions have been canceled for virus-related reasons, the Death Penalty Information Center said. Yet the federal government is set to execute 13 death row inmates before Biden is sworn into office.
Activists have called on the Trump administration to stop all executions during the transition period, and 40 members of the House of Representatives asked Biden to scrap capital punishment on his first day in office.
