| Amid COVID
19 in MCC Jail No Lawyer But Quarantine in
Hole Inner City Press Is Told
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Decrypt
- LightRead - Honduras
-
Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
March 29 -- As Coronavirus
COVID-19 has spread including
in the prison system, Inner
City Press has for two weeks
reported in person from nearly
every bail hearing and appeal
in the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New
York courthouse.
Based on
its articles it has received
communications from many
inmates and their family
members. Here's one,
after which Inner City Press
asked, "What about calls to
lawyers? Or asking their
lawyers to raise their cases
to the court? I'll be back in
the SDNY on Monday." And
here's the situation,
including that even if an
inmate has a lawyer who argues
and wins what awaits is two
weeks in the same hole they
use to punishment:
"Mr. Lee,
the conditions inside the MCC
due to coronavirus, are
inhuman. I have first
hand information from an
inmate, and would love to
share it, so the world is
aware of this situation that
should be a shame to the
authorities...
There have been no
confidential calls guaranteed
to inmates. They are told to
get in touch with their
lawyers by mail on CorrLinks,
but that’s no
confidential. The inmate
has his lawyer’s phone number,
but he needs to provide it to
his counselor, to get it
approved, but the counselor is
not at the facility and
haven’t been there for a
while, so practically his only
resource is the email which is
not confidential.
About discovery,
there are no conditions to
review it at all, since legal
visitation is not allowed and
there haven’t been any
confidential call or virtual
conferences as they said there
would be, this inmate
has very little information of
his case, only what his family
can tell him (over the phone
and being recorded) after
having them spoken to his
lawyers.
About raising
cases to court, specifically
regarding compassion releases,
the lawyers have learned that
if granted, the inmate is sent
to a segregation unit for 14
days, on quarantine, before
letting him out. Segregation
house units are the ones used
for punishment; that's
where they quarantine
people...scary. So inmates are
very scared of saying anything
(if they feel bad) because
they don’t want to be sent to
the segregation unit."
In
fairness the U.S. Bureau of
Prison tells a different tale,
including in letters to SDNY
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon,
who on March 27 Inner City
Press witnessed
and conversed with as she
experimented with technology
to hear from inmates seeking
release from the prisons.
But BOP's
letters and the US Attorney's
Office arguments are in the
PACER database, which unlike
most media publication has not
dropped its paywall for
coverage of Coronavirus.
All of this
hypocrisy takes place amid
this global
crisis as for example the
United Nations while laying
off UN Delegates Dining
Room workers at his
headquarters in New York City
without
any mitigation brags
about giving old masks to the
City amid a disease its boss
Antonio Guterres helped mock
and cover up, and bans
the Press which asks. We'll
have more on this. For now, a
song,
here.
***
Your
support means a lot. As little as $5 a month
helps keep us going and grants you access to
exclusive bonus material on our Patreon
page. Coronavirus and related coverage is
free. Click
here to become a patron.
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA
Mail: Box 20047, Dag
Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other, earlier Inner City Press are
listed here,
and some are available in the ProQuest
service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright 2006-2020 Inner City
Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com for
|
,
