Defense Attorneys Call for Releases From San Diego Federal Jails to Prevent Virus Spread

Updated Monday, April 6, 2:30 pm

Lawyers for defendants in federal court in San Diego — including hundreds of migrants charged with illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border — said their clients are at imminent risk from coronavirus in jail, and they’ve issued an urgent call for defendants to be released on bail.

“Jails are uniquely dangerous settings for COVID-19,” wrote Kathryn Nester, executive director of the Federal Defenders of San Diego, in a letter this week to Sen. Kamala Harris. “A COVID-19 crisis in our jails will greatly exacerbate the pandemic in our communities,” the letter said.

Nester told Harris that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego has consistently denied requests by defense attorneys to agree to bail for people charged with non-violent offenses, in spite of the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the region’s three federal detention facilities.

She asked the senator to pressure the U.S. Justice Department to release inmates awaiting trial and to take legislative action to speed up “the immediate release of as many inmates as possible.”

The call comes as coronavirus begins to surge through jails and prisons around the country, including 167 cases in Chicago’s Cook County Jail as of Thursday, and more than 239 at Riker’s Island in New York City by Friday.

California prison officials announced plans this week to release almost 3,500 inmates early to combat the spread of coronavirus.

And sheriffs in the Bay Area and beyond have also begun releasing some low-level inmates. San Francisco has reduced its jail population by 25% in recent weeks, according to SF District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Meanwhile, advocates for detained immigrants have filed lawsuits around the country demanding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release medically vulnerable people from ICE detention.

On Thursday, a federal judge ordered six people released from the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County.

Harris is “exploring options,” to answer the defense attorneys’ plea for help, according to her aides.

"The allegations raised are deeply concerning," Harris said in a statement.

"Prosecutors must make responsible charging decisions that eliminate unnecessary or excessive incarceration, especially during the coronavirus crisis," she added, stating that the Justice Department must address the matter "urgently and re-evaluate how it is enforcing and detaining individuals."

In San Diego, in response to the Federal Defenders’ charge that his office is ignoring the risk of COVID-19, San Diego’s U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer said federal prosecutors are taking an active role to protect health and safety.

Brewer said they are meeting regularly with stakeholders, including defense attorneys, court officials and the jails, to respond to the coronavirus crisis, and are working directly with the Federal Defenders to release scores of inmates willing to plead guilty and accept a sentence of “time served.”

“We have dramatically reduced our intake of new, reactive cases while continuing to focus on our mission to protect the public,” wrote Brewer in a statement, adding, “prosecutions are continuing... but we have elected to issue Notices to Appear in federal court to many of those individuals rather than taking them into custody.”

The Federal Defenders office, a non-profit legal service provider, represents about 1,500 indigent people charged with federal crimes — about half of all those in San Diego’s federal court with a court-appointed lawyer. The vast majority of the organization’s clients are charged with non-violent offenses, and more than half face prosecution for immigration offenses such as illegal entry or illegal re-entry to the U.S., lawyers said.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, lawyers with the Federal Defenders of San Diego have stopped visiting clients in jail, and are meeting with them by phone.

In recent days, attorneys have been gathering information from clients about coronavirus conditions in San Diego’s three federal jails: the Metropolitan Correctional Center, run by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons; the Western Region Detention Facility, run by the private company GEO Group; and the Otay Mesa Detention Center, run by another private company CoreCivic.

So far 45 inmates have responded to the questionnaire, and most have voiced fear of the disease and offered evidence that the jails are under pressure from the pandemic, said Joshua Jones, senior litigator at Federal Defenders.

Among the concerns Jones documented:

• Sleeping arrangements make social distancing impossible, including in dorm-style units at the Metropolitan Correctional Center where bunks are spaced “an arm’s distance” apart and people report being “packed like sardines;”
• At meals and in TV rooms at the MCC and GEO Group facilities, people sit side by side, with up to eight people at a table;
• To reach the dining hall at the Core Civic facility, 20-25 people are squeezed into a locked sally port, where they stand shoulder to shoulder;
• Insufficient soap is provided at all three jails, showers and bathrooms are shared by dozens of people and not cleaned between uses;
• The water was off for three days at the GEO Group facility recently;
• Inmates at MCC report sick detainees coughing for days, with some spitting blood into open trash cans, and one man who had to be carried to the bathroom by fellow detainees;
• Guards at the GEO Group facility continue to perform physical searches and pat-downs of inmates;
• At least one guard at the Core Civic facility was diagnosed with COVID-19 and several inmates showed symptoms of the disease;
• And some inmates do not want to report their symptoms for fear of being isolated in solitary confinement.

“There’s no way to prevent the fact that guards are coming in and out,” of the jails, said Jones. “Any introduction of COVID is going to spread like wildfire.”

Responding to the findings of the questionnaire, Ryan Gustin, public affairs manager for CoreCivic, said that the company had learned on April 2 that a second employee at the Otay Mesa Detention Center had tested positive for COVID-19. Gustin said that the worker's last shift was on March 20 and the person was currently isolated at home under medical supervision.

"Notification was made to other employees or contractors who may have been in contact with the individual who tested positive," said Gustin in a statement. "Any employees who are known to have had direct contact with this individual will be directed to self-quarantine at home for 14 days, as recommended by the CDC.

Gustin also pointed KQED to a CoreCivic statement about COVID-19 prevention, which says the company began preparing in January. The company's plan includes: screening inmates and employees when they enter a facility; encouraging staff and inmates to wash hands and maintain social distance; disinfecting surfaces and providing gloves to guards conducting searches.

A GEO group spokesperson released a statement to KQED through the company’s public relations firm.

“We strongly reject these unfounded allegations, which we believe are being instigated by outside groups with political agendas," the GEO statement said.

The public relations firm, Stutzman Public Affairs, also pointed to the company’s COVID-19 web page, which says that GEO Group facilities are not overcrowded and provide access to regular hand-washing and round-the-clock health care.

The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to requests for comment.