Joseph Fultz became the second inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute to die from COVID-19 related symptoms in the past month.
The 52-year-old Fultz was found unresponsive in his cell on Feb. 7th. Staff and emergency services personnel were unable to revive Fultz.
According to a news release from the Bureau of Prisons, Fultz arrived at FCI Terre Haute on Jan. 7. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison for sexual exploitation of a child.
Fultz tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 11 and was placed in medical isolation.
The BOP listed Fultz as recovered on Jan. 25 after he no longer showed symptoms of the coronavirus.
Officials say Fultz had long term pre-existing medical conditions that made him vulnerable to the virus.
Another FCI inmate, 44-year-old Shauntae Hill, died Jan. 9 after contracting the coronavirus for the second time.
He tested positive for the virus Sept. 14, 2020, and recovered from it on Sept. 24.
On Dec. 12th, 2020, he tested positive again and was taken to a local hospital for treatment, where he was placed on a ventilator.
Officials also say Hill had pre-existing conditions that made him susceptible to the virus. He arrived at FCI Terre Haute in January of 2020 after being sentenced out of the Western District of Michigan for possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine.
Four other inmates at the Terre Haute federal complex died of the coronavirus in 2020.
The facility includes maximum and medium-security prison facilities and the Special Confinement Unit, also known as Federal Death Row.
In July of 2020, the Trump Administration resumed executions at the prison complex’s execution chamber for the first time since 2003.
The Department of Justice confirmed that eight members of the execution team that participated in Orlando Hall’s execution in November of 2020 tested positive for COVID-19.
Hall and fellow inmate Corey Johnson, who had also tested positive and recovered from the virus, were executed by lethal injection days before Trump left office.
Their attorneys unsuccessfully argued before the Supreme Court that both men would suffer cruel and unusual punishment from the lethal drugs, because of damage to their lungs caused by the virus.
President Biden has vowed to end the federal death penalty, but since being sworn in last month has not signed any executive orders to do so.
Several members of Congress are crafting legislation to end the death penalty at the federal level.
, Adam Pinsker, February 10, 2021
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
