Prisoner transfer for virus reviewed
Judge could decide on inmates’ concerns
A Marin County judge might soon begin ordering the transfer of San Quentin State Prison inmates to other prisons in response to a wave of coronavirus safety complaints.
Some inmates, however, might prefer to remain where they are if they can’t be released. Charles Carbone, a prisoner rights lawyer in San Francisco, said that is because “right now everywhere else is hotter than San Quentin.”
As of Saturday, there were 9,155 active coronavirus cases among inmates at California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sites throughout the state. Ten prisons had 500 or more cases, but San Quentin had just four, the third least of any prison in the state.
“We are in COVID freefall in our prisons,” Carbone said. “The numbers are just skyrocketing. There is no end in sight.”
The situation at San Quentin, however, has changed dramatically since the summer. Coronavirus infections at the prison began to climb dramatically in June after 121 inmates were transferred there from the California Insti
tution for Men in Chino, where an outbreak was already underway. It was later revealed that the inmates who were transferred were tested for the virus, but not close to the transfer date.
Cases at San Quentin exploded, reaching their height at around 1,413 on July 8. Eventually, 2,152 of San Quentin’s population of 2,763 inmates would contract the virus, and 28 would die, more than at any other prison in the state. Nevertheless, by Aug. 7 there were only seven active cases at San Quentin.
Regarding San Quentin’s low case count now, Carbone said, “That is what happens when you get two-thirds of the population infected.”
During the summer, when the virus was still spreading rapidly at San Quentin, inmates there began filing petitions with the court. The inmates asserted that their continued incarceration during the severe outbreak violated the Eighth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Their cases were taken up by Carbone and the public defender offices in Marin, San Francisco and Alameda counties, as well as the Santa Clara County Alternate Defender Office. More than 300 petitions were filed.
Marin County Superior Court Judge Geoffrey Howard consolidated all of the petitions and scheduled a trial to decide the matter for last month.
Carbone said about a week before the trial was set to begin, the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco issued an opinion in a related case that essentially settled the matter.
In a ruling on the treatment of a single San Quentin inmate, Ivan Von Staich, the court ruled that the prison’s safety measures were “morally indefensible and constitutionally untenable.” The inmate, who was convicted of murder in Southern California in 1983 and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, was housed for a time in a 5-by9-foot cell with another prisoner who had tested positive for the virus.
As a remedy, the appeals court ordered at least half of the prison’s inmates transferred or released. The state prisons department
has appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court, which is scheduled to rule on the matter at the end of January.
Judge Howard announced on Dec. 9 that rather than wait for the Supreme Court’s ruling, he would begin ruling on the petitions on a case-bycase basis. He gave the state prisons department the option of remedying the situation by either releasing inmates or transferring them to another prison where better distancing is possible.
Howard said he would only consider petitions filed by inmates who are 60 or older, or inmates who have serious medical conditions that place them at heightened risk.
The Marin County Public Defender’s Office, however, has filed briefs objecting to transfers at this time, due to prevalence of the virus in other institutions, and called for the inmates’ release instead. The public defender’s office is handling 249 of the cases.
“It doesn’t make any sense to transfer them,” said Deputy Public Defender Christine O’Hanlon. “There is COVID everywhere now.”
O’Hanlon said the petitioners her office is representing are low-risk offenders.
“Some of them are in their 70s,” she said.
Carbone said the state has indicated it will not release the inmates who have filed petitions. Carbone said six of the 19 inmates he is representing have abandoned the legal proceeding rather than risk being transferred. O’Hanlon said perhaps as many as 15 of her clients had also decided to drop out for the same reason.
Late last week, Carbone said the state announced it was voluntarily halting all transfers out of San Quentin.
Dana Simas, a spokeswoman for the prisons department, said it is doing its best to balance public health with public safety.
“The department has reduced its overall population by almost 23,000 inmates since March,” Simas wrote in an email. “We are currently at the lowest number of inmates across the prison system in over 30 years putting us well below the court-mandated population cap, and that reduction has helped with COVID-19 response efforts, including having more isolation and quarantine space, as well as the ability to keep physical distancing within the incarcerated population.”