A federal inmate scheduled to be executed less than a week before President Donald Trump leaves office was a gang member who was sentenced to death for the slayings of seven people in Richmond, Virginia, in 1992.
Corey Johnson is one of three members of the Newtowne gang who received the death penalty under a federal law that targets large-scale drug traffickers. Johnson is scheduled to die Thursday at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
A federal judge halted his execution and Friday’s scheduled execution of Dustin Higgs because both men tested positive for COVID-19, but a federal appeals court late Wednesday lifted the injunction.
Additional appeals are likely, though government lawyers have been successful in getting a green light from the U.S. Supreme Court to proceed.