I want to know what was considered by those who agreed that “under the circumstances” it is a good idea to release the nonviolent prisoners from the [Calcasieu Correctional Center], other than Harry’s email from last week. Who is this intended to help? As we all should know, the members of this particular population are overwhelmingly drug addicts who have the worst hygiene of anyone in the community, other than the mentally ill. Right now, they are realistically quarantined in jail. I assume that none of you called the jail to find out if it was necessary or advisable to take this action, since I called [CCC warden Chris] Domingue and he wasn’t aware of any such contact. He told me that they have implemented protocols to do their best to make sure Corona doesn’t enter the CCC, which includes screening people as they are booked in, not allowing visitors, etc. The drug addicts will be right back out using and stealing and getting rearrested, which is much more likely to introduce the virus into the jail and spread it in the community. I’ll have more to say at the meeting, but it makes no sense at all, if the purpose is supposed to be to prevent the spread of Corona.
Two
people have confirmed that they received this text from Ritchie. Both
sources, who requested that they not be identified, said that Ritchie
reiterated these comments at the meeting, almost verbatim. One said
Ritchie’s comments shocked many of those present. “There was a pause in
the room. I think we were all surprised to hear a judge talk about
people that way.” Ritchie’s office did not respond to a voice mail and
email requesting comment.
“This
judge seems to have said the quiet part out loud,” said Rachel Elise
Barkow, a New York University School of Law professor and author of “Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration.”
“Some of us suspect and fear judges are locking up people who they
think are generally undesirable without really thinking about the danger
of future crime, and this judge made it explicit.”
Even if
Ritchie’s blanket, offensive characterization of drug users and the
mentally ill were true (and of course not all people arrested for drug
possession are “addicts”), it wouldn’t be a legally valid reason to keep
them in jail. “When the Supreme Court upheld allowing dangerousness to
be part of the bail determination, it specifically focused on the danger
of future crime,” Barkow said. “If the notion of dangerousness could
include something like a defendant’s hygiene or propensity to get sick,
we’d see our jails even more overflowing than they are now and the end
of due process as we know it.”
Defendants
in Calcasieu Parish already face a system that can keep them in jail
for long stretches before even getting a hearing. Judges in the parish
typically set bonds before defendants are assigned a public defender,
which means there’s no one present to advocate for a lower bond or for
release on personal recognizance. Judges also cycle between the criminal
and civil courts, meaning the judge handling a particular case may not
hold another criminal court session for weeks. Parish public defender
Carla Edmondson told me that it isn’t unusual in, for example, a drug
possession charge for a defendant to be incarcerated for weeks before
getting a chance to challenge his or her bond. One client of hers spent
three months in jail without a hearing, only to later have all of the
charges dropped.
Since the coronavirus
outbreak, there have been additional challenges. Jail visits have been
suspended for the past week, which makes it more difficult for defense
attorneys to communicate with clients. And judges are working from home,
making them more difficult to reach.
Ritchie
was the judge on duty last week in what’s locally called “72-hour
court,” or the court that sets bonds, signs warrants and takes care of
legal matters that can’t be postponed. Edmondson tried to file an
omnibus motion to release 16 nonviolent offenders from the jail, citing
the threat from the virus. Ritchie refused to sign the motion, or to
even set a hearing. Edmondson then contacted the judge presiding over
those cases at home and, two days later, won the release of 15 of the 16
defendants after conferencing with the new judge and a prosecutor.
On March 16, the ordered a postponement
of jury trials. It has since ordered state courts to suspend
nonemergency hearings and, as best they can, conduct emergency hearings
via telephone or video conferencing. The courts in Calcasieu Parish are
still transitioning. One defense attorney said her last hearing was in a
courtroom with the prosecutor and judge, but her client appeared from
the jail via video.
Currently
the Calcasieu Parish jail is holding 1,085 people, just short of its
1,200 capacity. There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases, though
there have been at other corrections facilities in the state. The
sheriff’s department said it’s screening new arrivals at the jail,
including taking their temperatures, and inmates are under a type of
quarantine. But of course those infected with covid-19 can shed the
virus before presenting with symptoms such as fever. ″You can’t socially
distance in jail," Edmondson said. “By keeping people in there for
nonviolent offenses, you’re sacrificing not just my clients, but their
families, and corrections staff and their families.”
Meanwhile, arrests in the parish for low-level offenses haven’t stopped.
In just the past several days a man was arrested on suspicion of
criminal mischief, and multiple people were arrested on charges of drug
possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Full Article & Source:
A Louisiana judge says drug users are too unhygienic to be released from jail
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