Defense attorneys ask to release some inmates

Vomiting inmates are preparing food for hundreds. Jail phones are not being sanitized after each call. Coughing inmates are not being separated from others. Deputies are wearing gloves but are using the same ones all day as they interact with dozens of other people.

Those are the conditions that Colorado’s defense attorneys say their clients are subjected to inside Colorado’s jails during the coronavirus pandemic. As deputies and inmates continue to test positive for COVID-19, the state’s defense attorneys are asking the state’s highest court to intervene and create standard rules aimed at decreasing the number of people locked up and preventing the spread of the coronavirus in courts.

The filing comes two days after the first Colorado law enforcement officer — El Paso County sheriff’s detention Deputy Jeff Hopkins — died from the respiratory disease.

The state public defender office, the criminal defense attorney bar and the Office of Alternate Defense Counsel on Friday filed two petitions asking the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court to issue statewide rules about jail depopulation. Chief Justice Nathan Coats on March 16 issued a statewide order suspending many court operations but left each of the state’s 22 judicial districts to make their own decisions on how to address the threat of the virus. The order did not address the jails.

“Businesses, restaurants, schools, government offices, and churches are closed,” one petition states. “But for incarcerated people, who live in conditions ripe for rampant spread of disease and lack the autonomy to self-isolate, daily life continues.”

The state Supreme Court will now decide whether to accept jurisdiction over the petition and how to proceed. The court could reject the petition completely, said Maureen Cain, director of legislative policy and external communications for the state public defender.

The petitions from the defense attorneys ask the chief justice to mandate lower courts do the following:

• Reduce the number of arrests and release arrestees on personal recognizance, where possible.

• Review cases of people held in jails because they cannot afford their bail and release them, if safe.

• Reduce sentence length; convert jail time into home detention or temporarily release inmates.

• Automatically allow defendants and attorneys to appear in court via telephone, waiving the need to ask permission.

• Limit groups in courthouses to no more than 10.

• Provide hand sanitizer inside all courtrooms.

The population of the state’s largest jails has declined by about a third in response to the pandemic, but inmates in many facilities still cannot practice social distancing. Rates of depopulation vary by county. That means whether an inmate is released often depends on where they were arrested.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus is spreading inside Colorado’s criminal justice system. Positive tests include an inmate at the Weld County Jail, three Weld County sheriff’s deputies, a Jefferson County jail deputy, eight El Paso County deputies, three inmates at the Denver downtown jail, three Department of Corrections staff members, multiple public defenders and a Colorado Springs prosecutor.

Thirty-two staff members of the Denver Public Safety Department have tested positive, department spokeswoman Kelli Christensen said Friday, but the city will not identify which agencies they belong to because of “patient privacy.” The safety department includes the police department, sheriff’s department, fire department, 911 communications and community corrections.

A positive diagnosis inside a jail isn’t confined to facility walls, as recent cases show. Two of the Denver jail inmates who tested positive have since been released from the facility on bail, Christensen said. A Weld County inmate contracted the disease despite been incarcerated since 2018.

“If you spread the disease around the jail, the first responders get sick,” Cain said. “Everybody gets sick.”