CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two Cleveland-area law firms have asked Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to grant emergency reprieves and temporarily release thousands of Ohio prisoners at risk of serious illness or death should they contract the coronavirus behind bars.
The 25-page filing delivered to DeWine’s office and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Thursday calls for the emergency releases of prisoners serving time on low-level and nonviolent felony convictions, those with a low likelihood to commit new crimes, and those who have medical conditions that make them especially vulnerable.
The filing comes after the Marion Correctional Facility was placed on in full quarantine Sunday after a staff member tested positive for the virus. The facility had tested 30 of its 2,500 inmates on Thursday for the virus, and 29 tests had come back negative, and aone was still pending, according to the ODRC.
There are nearly 50,000 prisoners and 12,000 staff members working in the 31 prisons spread out across the state, mostly in rural areas where local hospitals have just a few ICU beds. Conditions inside the facilities, including many where prisoners sleep on stacked bunk beds and sharing common areas, along with population that is on average less healthy than the average population, make prison ripe for the virus to spread rapidly once it gets behind bars, the filing says.
“Absent bold and immediate action, Ohio prisoners will fall ill and die in unprecedented numbers. Inaction in the face of this pandemic is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment and violates the rights of all prisoners in the custody of ODRC,” the filing states. “A human rights and constitutional rights crisis is brewing inside ODRC prisons.”
DeWine’s spokesman Dan Tierney said Friday that the governor would not comment “on this ongoing litigation.”
At Friday’s daily briefing from the Ohio Statehouse, DeWine said he and ODRC Director Annette Chambers-Smith identified 38 prisoners for potential early release -- 23 women who are either pregnant or have recently given birth while in prison, and 15 inmates over the age of 60 who were scheduled to be released in the next 120 days. His administration plans to send letters to the judges that heard the cases and allow the local courts to make the final call.
“We’re not going to release anybody who’s a sex offender, we’re not going to release anyone who’s a murderer," DeWine said.
Kimberly Kendall Corral and Megan Patituce from Strongsville-based Patituce and Associates, and Jacqueline Greene and Sarah Gelsomino from the Friedman & Gilbert firm in downtown Cleveland, drafted the filing seeking reprieves on behalf of four named clients who are currently serving prison sentences. But the filing went further and used data from the prison system’s 2019 annual report to identify as many as 15,000 inmates who would be eligible under the emergency request.
Prisoners on death row or those serving sentences of life without parole, and those who have been deemed a security threat while incarcerated, would not be eligible for emergency reprieve under the request.
For all others, the reprieve request asks for the release of any prisoner who has a certificate from their doctor saying they have a condition that would render them vulnerable to the disease caused by the virus, or if they are diagnosed with health conditions including chronic lung disease, moderate to severe asthma, a severe heart conditions, diabetes, renal or liver failure or any conditions that leave them immunocompromised like HIV/AIDS or cancer.
For inmates who do not have such a health diagnosis, those convicted of aggravated murder, murder and rape, must be categorized as a low-security risk, be at least 55 years old and have served the greater of either 25 years in prison or the minimum of the sentencing range to qualify for reprieve. So someone sentenced to life in prison with their first chance at probation after 30 years would only be eligible if they have served at least 30 years.
The request also seeks reprieves for anyone serving prison time on felonies of the fourth and fifth degrees, the least serious crimes. Those convicted of third-degree felonies would be eligible if they are on their first conviction or if they have served at least half of their sentence.
Before being released, the prisoner must agree to have a health screening, adhere to all public health orders in place, provide the address where they’ll be staying, arrange for their own transportation, and agree that they could be returned to prison once the public health crisis subsidies.
They will have the opportunity to file requests within 180 days to have the rest of their sentences commuted.
The filing seeks the release of four named prisoners.
Patricia Sharp, from Sandusky County, has served 18 months of a 30-month sentence sentence for tampering with records conviction. She has completed Military Training and culinary programs while behind bars, and done 250 hours of community service.
Shiloh Israel has served over half of his two-year sentence on drug trafficking and weapons charges in Hamilton County. He has no disciplinary history and has been eligible for early release since September.
Michelle Jones was sentenced in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in 1986 to 18 to 50 years in prison on involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery charges. She was released on parole in 2004, but was arrested in 2006 and sent back to prison, where she has remained since. Jones, 57, contracted Hepatitis C during a 2009 blood transfusion she received while in prison, the filing says. She has also received treatment for Stage IV liver fibrosis, and is immunocompromised.
John Tiedjen has been imprisoned out of Cleveland since 1989 on murder charges, but has maintained his innocence. A Common Pleas Court judge is currently considering whether to grant him a new trial based on newly discovered crime scene photographs that were not turned over to Tiedjen’s defense lawyers at his original trial.
Tiedjen, who is 56, has served 30 years on a minimum sentence of 18 years to life. He has been diagnosed with asthma and circulation issues, and has been monitored by an EKG machine in recent years, the filing says.
Advocates have sounded alarm bells about the impact an outbreak of the virus would have on the nation’s prison and jail populations. ACLU of Ohio Executive Director J. Bennet Guess urged DeWine in an op-ed published by cleveland.com to significantly reduce the state’s prison population.
“COVID-19 should not be a death sentence for all who find themselves behind bars right now,” Guess wrote. “Gov. DeWine can and should take necessary steps to ensure this pandemic does not completely ravage Ohio’s prisons and jails.”
Officials in Cuyahoga County scrambled to reduce the population of the county jail to make room should inmates need to be quarantined, shedding nearly half of its inmates from March 9 through Friday, when the county announced that six inmates had tested positive for virus and two more had symptoms consistent with it.
Federal officials also confirmed on Friday that a second inmate at Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in Columbiana County had died due to complications from COVID-19.
DeWine said at Tuesday’s daily news briefing that he would consider releasing some inmates on a case-by-case basis, but said he would draw the line on inmates convicted of violent crimes or those deemed sexual predators.
"We do have an obligation to people in prison, we have an obligation to the staff to make it safe,” he said. "But we also have an obligation to people who are outside. And we’re not going to turn sex offenders loose and people who were in there for very, very serious crimes.”
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