Five inmates at a federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, have died since March 28 after contracting the coronavirus. Harold Lee’s family fears he could be next.
FILE PHOTO: A guard drives past the entrance of the Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island, where former Ukraine Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko was released from custody early this morning in San Pedro, California, November 1, 2012. REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn
Prosecutors have been making similar arguments in federal courts across the United States, according to a Reuters review of documents from dozens of court cases, and interviews with attorneys, legal advocates and inmates’ relatives. “They’re fighting the release of vulnerable people on technicalities. It’s disgusting,” said Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a group that has pushed to reduce the number of people in prisons.
Since last week, the federal Bureau of Prisons has approved 500 inmates for release to home confinement, Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said. Coronavirus case numbers are exploding in Louisiana. Emily Arseneau, Lee’s daughter, said she fears for his safety and wants to see him released. Some legal scholars doubt that a spate of inmate releases will reduce the overall risk to society. Prisons must continue operating, so the best course is to take measures inside those facilities to deal with the virus, according to Jon Guze, director of legal studies at the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank in North Carolina.
Take North Carolina inmate Larry Winckler. A convicted embezzler, the 59-year-old has terminal cancer. He asked a judge for compassionate release as the coronavirus has spread through his prison in rural Butner. Prosecutors objected when 64-year-old Teresa Gonzalez, who has emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asked to be released a few months early from a jail in Spokane, Washington, where she had begun a short sentence for her role in a scheme to defraud insurance companies. They argued that no inmates had tested positive for COVID-19, thus her request was “currently predicated on a hypothetical.
David Joseph, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, told Reuters his office would not oppose an expedited re-sentencing hearing by video conference, where Lee’s defense lawyer could bring up concerns about his client’s health in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
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