Jury will say if Mercer-Hudson inmate transfer plan is lawful
TRENTON » Mercer County’s controversial long-distance incarceration plan still remains a pipe dream.
The all-Democratic political machines in Mercer and Hudson counties ramrodded an inmatetransfer deal in October 2019 ordering most of Mercer County’s highrisk offender population to be jailed at the Hudson County Correctional Center in the North Jersey town of Kearny beginning Jan. 1, 2020, but the plan remains in limbo following a court challenge.
Morris County Assignment Judge Stuart A. Minkowitz on Dec. 24, 2019, granted a preliminary injunction blocking the shared services agreement between Mercer and Hudson counties from going into effect. The plan remains on ice pending the outcome of prolonged litigation.
State Public Defender Joseph E. Krakora, the New Jersey Public Defender’s Office, PBA Local 167, Mercer correctional officer Winslow Land and some of Mercer County’s most notorious inmates filed a lawsuit last year arguing Mercer County’s masstransfer plan was unconstitutional.
The judge granted the plaintiffs’ request for temporary relief, finding that Mercer County had a “lack of appropriate video technology for remote consultations,” a clear deficiency that “strains the detainees’ Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel such that preliminary restraints are warranted, at least until such accommodations have been provided.”
Lawyers for Mercer County argue the transfer plan is legal and sound, stating in court papers that “no federal constitutional rights of the Plaintiffs have been or will be violated.”
Mercer and Hudson counties further demanded a trial by jury consisting of six or 12 members to decide whether the inmate-transfer plan is kosher.
Minkowitz earlier this month has scheduled the trial to begin 1:30 p.m. Dec. 6, 2021, in Courtroom
200 at the Morris County Courthouse in Morris- town.