Emergency Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, Injunctive, and Declaratory Relief - Class Action

As a tragic combination of infectious and deadly, COVID-19 poses a once-in-a-lifetime threat on a worldwide scale. Every state and territory in the United States has now been impacted, with nearly half a million cases and over 20,000 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Even under ordinary conditions, each person who contracts this illness can be expected to infect between 2 and 3 others. Cramped, overcrowded prisons amplify this threat. With thousands of people literally stacked on top of each other and unable to move around without rubbing shoulders, such environments are fundamentally incompatible with medically-indicated social distancing and hygiene protocols. As a result, they present a grave threat not only to prisoners and staff, but also to the broader community by enabling the spread of COVID-19 both inside and outside the prison walls. This danger is playing out with disastrous consequences in Elkton Federal Correctional Institution ( FCI Elkton ), a low-security federal correctional institution with an adjacent low security satellite prison ( FSL Elkton ), collectively described as Elkton. As of April 12, 2020, at least 3 prisoners have died, and scores of prisoners and staff have reportedly been hospitalized, including more than a dozen who have needed ventilators to stay alive. These numbers will continue to grow exponentially. Despite knowing the risks to prisoners, staff, and the community, Elkton has failed to provide meaningful protection against the spread of the disease. Prisoners are still clustered together in confined spaces with limited access to hygiene and inadequate ventilation

Petitioners\u27 Reply Memorandum in Support of Their Emergency Petetion for a Writ of Habeas Corpus

In the roughly 120 hours since Petitioners filed their emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the death toll at Elkton has doubled, and the number of BOP-confirmed COVID-19 cases among prisoners has tripled. About three dozen corrections staff have tested positive for the virus, a number that has also tripled since this case was filed. Elkton now accounts for more than one-third of all prisoner deaths from COVID-19 in federal prisons nationwide, and over half of the COVID-19 deaths in Columbiana County, making it one of the deadliest places a person can live in the current pandemic. According to one source, 32 prisoners have been hospitalized, including 16 requiring ventilators. Meanwhile, Respondents “have yet to come up with a good, sound criteria of how they are going to actually start the testing” of prisoners, much less a plan for social distancing, release, or transfer. Two weeks after the Attorney General exhorted Respondents to “immediately review” all prisoners with COVID-19 risk factors and “immediately transfer them” after quarantine, a mere six of the 2,400 prisoners at Elkton, or 0.25%, have been approved. Elkton has become an epicenter of COVID-19, and continued confinement will mean a sentence of death, permanently damaged organs, or unnecessary suffering for more residents. Respondents’ lack of effective action constitutes deliberate indifference to serious medical need. This Court is empowered to provide a process for the necessary releases—the only means by which prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights can be vindicated. The nature of that authority, under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 or alternatively 28 U.S.C. § 1331, is explained further in Section III below

Emergency Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, Injunctive, and Declaratory Relief - Class Action

As a tragic combination of infectious and deadly, COVID-19 poses a once-in-a-lifetime threat on a worldwide scale. Every state and territory in the United States has now been impacted, with nearly half a million cases and over 20,000 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Even under ordinary conditions, each person who contracts this illness can be expected to infect between 2 and 3 others. Cramped, overcrowded prisons amplify this threat. With thousands of people literally stacked on top of each other and unable to move around without rubbing shoulders, such environments are fundamentally incompatible with medically-indicated social distancing and hygiene protocols. As a result, they present a grave threat not only to prisoners and staff, but also to the broader community by enabling the spread of COVID-19 both inside and outside the prison walls. This danger is playing out with disastrous consequences in Elkton Federal Correctional Institution ( FCI Elkton ), a low-security federal correctional institution with an adjacent low security satellite prison ( FSL Elkton ), collectively described as Elkton. As of April 12, 2020, at least 3 prisoners have died, and scores of prisoners and staff have reportedly been hospitalized, including more than a dozen who have needed ventilators to stay alive. These numbers will continue to grow exponentially. Despite knowing the risks to prisoners, staff, and the community, Elkton has failed to provide meaningful protection against the spread of the disease. Prisoners are still clustered together in confined spaces with limited access to hygiene and inadequate ventilation

Petitioners\u27 Reply Memorandum in Support of Their Emergency Petetion for a Writ of Habeas Corpus

In the roughly 120 hours since Petitioners filed their emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the death toll at Elkton has doubled, and the number of BOP-confirmed COVID-19 cases among prisoners has tripled. About three dozen corrections staff have tested positive for the virus, a number that has also tripled since this case was filed. Elkton now accounts for more than one-third of all prisoner deaths from COVID-19 in federal prisons nationwide, and over half of the COVID-19 deaths in Columbiana County, making it one of the deadliest places a person can live in the current pandemic. According to one source, 32 prisoners have been hospitalized, including 16 requiring ventilators. Meanwhile, Respondents “have yet to come up with a good, sound criteria of how they are going to actually start the testing” of prisoners, much less a plan for social distancing, release, or transfer. Two weeks after the Attorney General exhorted Respondents to “immediately review” all prisoners with COVID-19 risk factors and “immediately transfer them” after quarantine, a mere six of the 2,400 prisoners at Elkton, or 0.25%, have been approved. Elkton has become an epicenter of COVID-19, and continued confinement will mean a sentence of death, permanently damaged organs, or unnecessary suffering for more residents. Respondents’ lack of effective action constitutes deliberate indifference to serious medical need. This Court is empowered to provide a process for the necessary releases—the only means by which prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights can be vindicated. The nature of that authority, under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 or alternatively 28 U.S.C. § 1331, is explained further in Section III below