Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Codignotto, Jenna M

Titel

CATEGORICALLY CAGED: THE CASE FOR EXTENDING EARLY RELEASE ELIGIBILITY TO INMATES WITH VIOLENT OFFENSE CONVICTIONS

Ist Teil von

• St. John's law review, 2022-07, Vol.95 (2), p.495-520

Ort / Verlag

Brooklyn: St. John's Law Review Association

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Nexis

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• INTRODUCTION We dont need to let our vision of freedom be constrained by the people who make freedom seem so impossible.1 Susan Farrell faced both physical and sexual abuse from her husband before he was killed in 1989.2 Although Ms. Farrell maintained her innocence and urged that it was her son who killed her husband, she was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy charges, resulting in a life sentence without parole.3 After serving thirty years of her sentence at the Michigan Department of Corrections, Ms. Farrells tragic life met a no less tragic end.4 In April 2020, one month after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Ms. Farrell seized in her cell for forty-five minutes before dying from the virus.5 She was seventy-four years old, which put her at an increased risk of dying from COVID-19.6 Yet, Michigan Governor Whitmer refused to make inmates like Ms. Farrell-that is, inmates with violent crime convictions-eligible for early release.7 After COVID-19 was declared a national emergency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC") emphasized the importance of "social distancing" to slow the spread of the virus. Legislative reform is particularly important because courts have failed to find Eighth Amendment violations in cases where states refused to release inmates amid a public health crisis.18 I. BACKGROUND A. The Constitutional Duty States Owe to Their Prisoners Amid a Public Health Crisis The Eighth Amendment protects inmates against the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment and is applicable to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.19 The Supreme Court of the United States initially interpreted the Eighth Amendment as only protecting against barbaric and disproportionate methods of criminal punishment.20 However, in Estelle v. Gamble, the Court extended the Eighth Amendment to protect against unconstitutional conditions of confinement.21 Specifically, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that unconstitutional conditions of confinement exist when a prisoner is "exposed . . . to a sufficiently substantial 'risk of serious damage to his future health,' " and where prison officials are deliberately indifferent to that risk.22 Therefore, when a state incarcerates a person, it takes on a "corresponding duty" to protect that person's safety and well-being.23 This constitutional duty requires prisons "to protect inmates in their custody from the spread of serious, communicable diseases, including where the complaining inmate does not show symptoms of the disease, or where 'the possible infection might not affect all of those exposed. ' "24 B. Establishing Unconstitutional Conditions of Confinement During a Pandemic To successfully establish an Eighth Amendment violation for conditions of confinement, an inmate must establish two elements: one objective and one subjective.25 First, to satisfy the objective component, it must be shown that prison living conditions seriously deprive inmates of their basic human needs.26 Second, to satisfy the subjective component, it must be shown that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to inmate health or safety.27 As a result, even if prison officials are aware of a serious health threat, no Eighth Amendment violation exists unless the officials acted in a deliberately indifferent manner to that threat.28 Historically, courts have held that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to a health crisis if they completely failed to take precautions to protect their inmates.29 Conversely, when prison officials made efforts to protect inmates from a substantial threat of harm, courts have found no Eighth Amendment liability.30 For example, in Butler v. Fletcher, the appellant had little trouble satisfying the objective element because tuberculosis was a known public health threat.31 Nonetheless, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that there was no Eighth Amendment violation because the appellant could not satisfy the subjective element.32 In that case, officials enacted "policies [that] specifically acknowledged the risk and promulgated detailed procedures for the diagnosis, segregation, and treatment of . . . inmates infected with active cases of [tuberculosis]. "36 Notably, states did not have a duty to release inmates to mitigate the deadly threat that COVID-19 posed to its prisoners.37 Nevertheless, several states implemented early release mechanisms in response to the experts and health organizations that emphasized the need for "social distancing]" to prevent the spread of the virus.38 Although the mechanisms and enforcement of these relief efforts varied state-by-state, there were common themes, such as who was-and who was not-eligible for release.39 State COVID-related early release mechanisms were nearly unanimous in their explicit exclusion of inmates with violent offense convictions.40 The exclusion of these inmates was attributed to the belief that these releases would pose a threat to public safety.41 Because of this fear, governors enacting reforms made it clear that their policies would not include inmates convicted of violent offenses.42 And with the exception of some advocates,43 the public was supportive of governors' decisions to exclude this group of inmates from release eligibility.44 As a result, inmates with violent offense convictions-many of whom were vulnerable to the virus-remained in prison despite the presence of a highly contagious and deadly disease.45 Moreover, state COVID-related early release mechanisms were practically unanimous in their focus on releasing nonviolent inmates who were nearing the end of their sentences.46 These policies were largely based on the belief that releasing inmates with nonviolent convictions would not pose a threat to public safety or result in recidivism.47 The Rhode Island Supreme Court, for example, ordered the release of inmates with less than ninety40 one days remaining of their sentences.48 After the court issued the order, Attorney General Peter Neronha clarified that only inmates serving sentences for nonviolent offenses would be eligible for release.49 Similarly, the Governor of Ohio only authorized the release of inmates who were convicted of nonviolent crimes and were nearing the end of their sentences.50 Additionally, many states recognized the heightened risk that the virus posed to older and medically vulnerable inmates, which led some to adopt policies that prioritized their release, but only if they were convicted of a nonviolent offense and were nearing the end of their sentence.51 D. Lawsuits Claiming Unconstitutional Conditions of Confinement Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic Several prisoners excluded from state-based early release mechanisms attempted to seek an order for release by claiming that their conditions of confinement were unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.52 These lawsuits were filed by medically vulnerable and older inmates who alleged that the threat posed by COVID-19 to people with their conditions and in spaces of limited distancing amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.53 As mentioned above, these