"Nothing to See Here:" DOJ Is Silent on Spread of
Delta as Federal Governmental Agency Failures Multiply; IRS
Concedes that Millions of Returns Still Unprocessed; New Case Provides Support
for 2255 Filings
by Derek Gilna
As Delta
variant infections quickly spread through the federal prison system, DOJ
continues to downplay the threat, and maintains its policy of undercounting
infections and deaths. This policy of deliberate indifference has not had the
desired effect, as more and more prisoner advocates and groups like the ACLU,
and even some labor leaders for federal
correctional officers, call for an end to the policy of offical
"impunity." https://uclacovidbehindbars.org/delta-data-transparency.
Josh Manson,
a researcher at the UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project, says that there
have been few efforts to curb the Delta variant and COVID-19 overall, making
prisons deadly places for transmission. “When the pandemic first hit in March
2020, prisons were not taking the situation seriously,” Manson says. “We know
that it’s even more transmissible than it was the first time a year and a half
ago. We’ve seen thousands of people die in jails and prisons.” www.verywell.com.
Manson
noted the number of "deathbed" releases, the release of incarcerated
individuals who are near death, have skewed the death county lower. “It’s basically just taking the
handcuffs off while they’re [incarcerated people] on a ventilator and then
saying, 'oh, you’re free,' and then they die,” Manson explains. Deathbed
releases have made it difficult to determine the number of deaths that occurred
within prisons, Manson adds. In fact, the New York Times reported week that dozens of these cases around
the country have been excluded from official counts. www.nytimes.com, July 7 2021. In other words, prosecutors, given false
numbers by their "client," are filing misleading information
regarding the deadliness of the pandemic.
Another way
prosecutors misleads the judges is the "he/she refused the vaccine"
argument. However, as noted by noted
COVID and correctional health expert Dr. Homer Venters, this completely
misrepresents the reality of getting a vaccination in prison. Venters is an
epidemiologist, clinical associate professor at New
York University’s College
of Global Public Health, and former
chief medical officer for the New York City
jail system. According to Venters, the most basic strategies for curbing
vaccine hesitancy—like addressing people's concerns about safety—are not being
employed.
Incarcerated
people have declined vaccinations because their questions about the vaccines
were left unanswered, Venters says. “Often behind bars, the way that the
vaccine is offered is through these big mass events, there’s very little
attention to finding the people who have questions, and really sitting down and
talking to them,” Venters adds. We have this paradoxical situation where some
of the sickest people who really just had a lot of normal, genuine questions
about vaccinations remain unvaccinated because of the way in which the vaccine
has been offered,” Venters stresses.
Why are
guard vaccination rates so low? Venters
has the answer. “For correctional officers, some have rejected the vaccine
because they were worried about not having enough paid time off, Venters notes.
“Correctional settings decided they were going to give people five or 10 days
of COVID off, and that would include if they got sick from COVID, or if they
had a side effect of the vaccine,” he adds. “But many correctional officers
blew through that time a year ago when they got sick.” Officers also saw
the often serious side effects of giving vaccines to people already ill with
COVID, or who were not properly screened before being compelled to take the
shot. So DOJ is essentially also mistreating its employees, which is why they
are quitting in droves. www.verywellhealth.com.
The senior
author of the JAMA Internal Medicine study, Massachusetts
General Hospital (MGH) infectious diseases physician Amir
Mohareb, MD, has worked on a pro bono basis with several advocacy groups working
to ensure that infection control measures are implemented in prisons during the
coronavirus pandemic. So we asked, What are characteristics of these facilities
that might lead to more COVID-19 transmission?" says Mohareb, who is also
a researcher at MGH's Medical Practice Evaluation Center. Their analysis found that crowding
at the facilities varied greatly during the observation period, with the
population at some dropping as low as 25 percent of design capacity, while
others were extremely crowded, reaching up to 155 percent of design capacity.
Mohareb and his colleagues found that as facilities became more crowded, the
threat to inmates rose: Every increase of 10 percentage points in a prison
population relative to the facility's design capacity raised the risk of
getting infected with COVID-19 by 14 percent. Similar to other studies, this
investigation found that inmates in prisons have a significantly greater
risk—more than six-fold—for becoming infected with COVID-19 compared to the
general public. www.massgneneral.org. Here are just a few of the current
institutional counts: FMC
Devans: Over 10; FMC Carswell: Over 40;
Waseca: over 5; FCI Houston: multiple officers and prisoners; Yazoo city: over
40, with multiple wings locked down; FCI Gilmer: over 10, with partial lockdown in effect;
both Elkton and the Lexington camp are experiencing outbreaks. Milan
has multiple cases and lockdowns. As usual no general testing is being
done. As to the continuing failure of the IRS
to process tax refunds, the IRS says your
refund could take extra time if you filed for the earned income tax credit;
requested a missing stimulus check; or were unemployed last year. It can also
be delayed if you were a victim of unemployment ID theft.
The Supreme Court continues
in recess. In the circuits ,in the case of US
v Warren, 20-3045, (6th Cir. 8-9-21), Warren
pled guilty as a felon in possession of a firearm. His plea agreement bound the
parties to “recommend that the Court impose a sentence within” Warren’s
Guidelines range, calculated at 51-63 months, and prohibited either party from
“suggest[ing] in any way that a departure or variance” from Warren’s
Guidelines range “is appropriate.” (This is one defense attorney who earned his
money.)
Before
sentencing, the district court notified Warren
that it was considering an upward variance and ultimately sentenced him to 120
months in prison. The Sixth Circuit vacated, reasoning that “because the
Guidelines already account for a defendant’s criminal history,” the “extreme
variance” based solely on Warren’s
criminal history was “inconsistent with the need to avoid unwarranted sentence
disparities.” On remand, the district court again circulated a notice of
possible upward variance. At the hearing, the court asked the parties to
discuss the potential variance. The prosecuting attorney stated that she “wanted
to clarify something that defense counsel brought up because she is asking the
Court to have a standard of reliance upon this.” The prosecutor acknowledged
the existence of a plea agreement, which “the government has no intention of
violating” but indicated that, had the full extent of Warren’s
history been known, there would have been a different recommendation. The Sixth
Circuit vacated the 96-month sentence imposed on remand as substantively
unreasonable. The government breached Warren's
plea agreement. This reasoning is fully applicable in other circuits for 2255
habeas purposes.
Be not afraid and let not your heart be troubled.
Derek Gilna, Director, JD, MARJ, Federal
Legal Center,
113 McHenry Rd. #173, Buffalo
Grove, IL
60089 (and Indiana)
dgilna1948@yahoo.com (English newsletter and ALL
inquiries, English or Spanish)
federallc_esp@yahoo.com, Spanish newsletter, but NO
inquiries.
Blog: "Derek
Gilna's Federal Criminal Justice Musings and Reflections."
