A Denver District Court judge will consider whether to order Gov. Jared Polis to release some inmates from state prisons because of the ongoing outbreaks of the novel coronavirus among prisoners and staff.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado asked District Judge Kandace Gerdes to force the governor to release or transfer medically-vulnerable incarcerated people who do not pose a threat to public safety in a motion for a preliminary injunction filed Wednesday.
The ACLU of Colorado argued that the current precautions taken by the Colorado Department of Corrections to slow the spread of COVID-19 in state prisons have proven to be ineffective, and now the only way to protect prisoners from getting sick and dying is to reduce the number of people behind bars so that prisoners can properly practice social distancing and those who are sick can be isolated from those who are healthy.
Seven of Colorado’s 10 largest COVID-19 outbreaks are in state prisons, according to state health data. Eleven prisoners have died from the virus.
“The overcrowded nature of prisons prevents the social distancing that is required to prevent or mitigate the potential threat of the virus,” ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein said Wednesday. “So the real answer is population reduction… and the person with the authority to do something about that is the governor.”
The governor could grant some prisoners parole or offer clemency, according to the lawsuit.
A spokesman for Polis declined to comment Wednesday. In May, the governor said during a news conference that the pandemic was “no excuse to let criminals out.” On Tuesday, he doubled down on his recent position that incarcerated people should not receive the coronavirus vaccine before free people.
Executive orders Polis signed at the beginning of the pandemic relaxed some of the restrictions around the release of medically-vulnerable inmates, but those orders have lapsed, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint against Polis piggybacks on a lawsuit the ACLU of Colorado and other attorneys filed in May against the Colorado Department of Corrections and Polis; the Department of Corrections and the ACLU settled in mid-November when the prison system agreed to take a variety of precautions, but the claim against Polis is ongoing.
A spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
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December 03, 2020 at 03:55AM
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ACLU asks judge to force Gov. Jared Polis to release some Colorado prisoners amid pandemic - The Denver Post
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