San Quentin is told to free or move inmates

Court orders the state prison to release or transfer more than 1,000 prisoners in the aftermath of outbreak.

California corrections officials must release or transfer more than 1,000 inmates from the state’s notoriously outdated San Quentin prison after showing “deliberate indifference” to prisoners’ health during an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, an appeals court ruled this week.

Under the decision issued late Tuesday by a three- judge panel from the 1st District Court of Appeal, the Bay Area facility can house “no more than 1,775 inmates” — half of what the prison’s population was in June and a drop of more than a third from the roughly 2,900 people currently housed there.

The ruling comes in a case f iled by an inmate in May that challenged the prison’s ability to prevent an outbreak of the virus. Within a few weeks, the number of infections among prisoners had begun to soar as the virus spread unchecked through the state’s oldest prison, infecting more than 2,200 prisoners and killing at least 28. .

“By all accounts, the COVID- 19 outbreak at San Quentin has been the worst epidemiological disaster in California’s correctional history. And there is no assurance San Quentin will not experience a second or even third spike,” Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline wrote in the opinion. “Failure to immediately adopt and implement measures designed to eliminate double- celling, dormitory- style housing and other measures to permit physical distancing between inmates is morally indefensible and constitutionally untenable.”

The court found that, despite being aware that many San Quentin inmates were particularly vulnerable to the virus because of their age or underlying health conditions, officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to adequately reduce the prison’s population by transferring or granting early parole to a large number of inmates. The court noted that a panel of physicians recommended the population be halved after visiting the prison.

The inmate who filed the case, Ivan Von Staich, is serving a life sentence for killing the husband of his exgirlfriend. Von Staich’s lawyers, saying he had a lung condition that made him vulnerable to contracting COVID- 19, argued that the prison conditions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution because it was impossible for inmates to maintain safe distances from one another and observe other safeguards.

The appeals court ordered that Von Staich be released or transferred to another prison. A parole board last week recommended he be released on parole, although Gov. Gavin Newsom could veto the recommendation.

In addition, the judges ruled that prison officials must provide sufficient social distancing for all the inmates in San Quentin. To do so, they found, the number of people housed in the facility had to be cut through transfers to other facilities or releases.

In response to the ruling, the corrections department released a statement saying it was in the process of determining how to accomplish the ordered reduction. The department could appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court and ask it for a restraining order to put the inmate reduction on hold.

Since March 12, California’s overall prison population has declined by 22,629 inmates and as of Tuesday stood at 92,414, according to corrections department statistics.