Suit vs. B’klyn federal lockup gets 2nd life

Facility — which houses people who are quarantined with coronavirus — is filled to the max, sources told The News. As of Monday morning, 39 inmates and 21 Correction Department staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.

The Correction Department gave jail staffers permission on Sunday to use their own N95 or surgical masks — and promised to distribute more N95 masks to curb the spread of coronavirus, according to an internal memo obtained by The News.

The notice — sent out at 8:55 p.m. Sunday from Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann — said the agency has a limited quantity of masks and would prioritize staffers who work in quarantined jail areas, areas where individuals show flu-like symptoms and “any areas deemed necessary by the department.”

“As you may know, we have seen a dramatic rise in cases over just a few days and are implementing the plans we had in place,” MacDonald wrote in his letter to Correctional Health employees. “No protocols can plan for all the complexity of a situation evolving this quickly. We need your feedback, your expertise, your judgment and you will be asked to make decisions at times for situations we cannot plan for,” he added. “But we have trained and prepared our entire lives for this. There will be frayed nerves and disagreements, but please engage with kindness and good will toward your colleagues. We are in this together and we will come through it together.”

An appeals court has revived a lawsuit over a heating crisis at a federal jail in Brooklyn, writing that the coronavirus pandemic highlighted the urgent need to resolve issues surrounding inmates’ difficulties meeting with their defense attorneys.

The heat failure during the coldest days of winter last year at the Metropolitan Detention Center sparked protests, numerous court hearings and an investigation by the Justice Department watchdog. In a decision issued Friday, Manhattan’s 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the Federal Defenders, which represents many of the inmates at the 1,600-bed jail, could pursue a lawsuit alleging violations of the Sixth Amendment right to an attorney.

The Defenders claim the Bureau of Prisons suspended attorney-client visits without informing anyone about what was happening behind bars at the Sunset Park jail.

Visits are again suspended at bureau facilities around the country as the feds try to prevent a coronavirus outbreak among inmates and staff. One inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center has tested positive for coronavirus and is in isolation, the bureau says.

“Although the events of early 2019 were hardly routine, defendants have not argued — much less demonstrated — that the circumstances that disrupted attorney-client visits at the [lockup] are unlikely to arise again. Indeed, recent public health-related developments suggest that they are all too likely to recur,” the unanimous three-judge panel wrote Friday.

David Patton of the Federal Defenders of New York said the decision was an important call for the bureau to change its policies during emergencies.

“Especially in these dark times for people in jail, isolated from their lawyers and loved ones, the opinion is a ray of light. It reaffirms the importance of access to counsel even in times of crisis — perhaps especially in times of crisis — and it leaves no doubt about the gravity of the problems that detainees in the MDC (and other BOP facilities) confront to this day in getting that access,” Patton wrote.