Tressa Clements pressed her hand to the ICU window and spoke through her tears. “Baby girl, I pray to God you would wake up,” she said to her child, lashed to a ventilator. “I want you to wake up.” That was Sunday evening — the penultimate day of Saferia Johnson life. Johnson, an inmate at the women’s work camp at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County, died the next morning, just after 10. The cause: COVID-19. She was 36. Johnson, a non-violent inmate with two young sons, had petitioned the prison for compassionate release. The warden had rejected the request.
The next is from Florida Women's Reception Center:
Just days after the first corrections officer in Florida prisons died of COVID-19, a second officer died of the highly infectious disease, which has infected 9,180 inmates and 1,810 officers across the state prison system. Fifty-four inmates have died. Joseph “Joe” Foster, was remembered by family and friends as a devoted husband, father and proud U.S. Army veteran. He was hired by the state Department of Corrections in December 2009. “We called him ‘the enforcer’ because he always took care of everybody,” said Cory Surles, a friend of Foster’s who served alongside him in Germany from 1997 to 1998. Surles confirmed that Foster died Monday night. Surles said Foster, who had a wife of 15 years, two sons and a daughter, was a “family guy” who had a “heart of gold.” His last Facebook posts were about school reopenings, and how he feared the state would be putting children in danger if they sent them back to in-person instruction.
Earlier in the week I highlighted some of the good work being done by our judges in the District on compassionate release (which does not just help inmates but helps prison staff as well). But there are a handful of judges who are refusing to grant any of these motions. One judge recently said that it would not be fair to the defendants who have served their entire sentences. (!!!)
Read the above stories... is it fair for someone to be sentenced to death? To the judges who have not granted these motions, please reconsider your position. Be compassionate. Our criminal justice system hasn't crumbled because Congress passed the First Step Act or because judges are actually granting compassionate release motions. Judges who are not granting any of the motions filed are being true activist judges -- not following the will of Congress or the people. Worse, they are allowing defendants and prison staff to die. Stand up!
The role of a Judge involves by definition the use of their humanity to have mercy and to understand and value each person's life and actions, while at the same time using the tools that the laws have given them to provide for justice, deterrence, respect of the law, and public safety.
ReplyDeleteFor those few Judges that are not granting compassion in any way, maybe they should re-imagine their role and think that if We The People would have wanted machines to run our justice systems, the technology (Artificial Intelligence- AI) is out there already and readily available.
We the people do not want AI driven decision, we want HUMANS on the job.
👏👏👏
ReplyDeleteDon’t do the crime if you can’t do the time...
ReplyDeleteOccam’s razor: had there been no crime, they would not need third parties to intervene.
11.44 AM I guess the AI (Artificial Intelligence) comment applies perfectly to your comment.....as "robotic" as it gets
ReplyDeleteGotta love iiberal white men in Mercedes/Porsche/Tesla in gated neighborhoods with security preaching about civil rights from their McMansions.
DeletePinecrest is not gated.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Cadillacs?
ReplyDeleteJudge, I talked to a client who was released a few years ago. He says he has no problem with you granting compassionate releases. He doesn't think it's unfair.
ReplyDeleteThe thought that granting compassionate release now would be unfair to defendants who served their sentences previously misses a lot of points, including that defendants who previously served their sentences did not serve their sentences with the threat of contracting a fatal disease and the inability to protect themselves from that hanging over their heads. It also ignores that defendants serving time now are serving much harsher time because of BOP's lockdown measures, all programming has been stopped and people are confined 23-24 hours a day. And, well, there's the fact that courts routinely retroactively apply supreme court decisions that mean that some people still in jail serve less time than similarly situated people who were already released.
ReplyDeleteMaking things more fair or just for people currently incarcerated doesn't further harm people who have served their time.
There are some judges who have good reputations in state court where they are accountable to the people. When that accountability is no longer there, things change. Especially when you want to go to the 11th.
ReplyDeleteBy that same logic, the Emancipation Proclamation shouldn't have happened because it was really unfair to slaves that died before it was implemented.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize Tom Cotton commented on this blog.
Please stay in the lane. Your liberal head just exploded
DeletePolice: Rape suspect, freed due to coronavirus, kills accuser
ReplyDeletehttps://www.fox5ny.com/news/police-rape-suspect-freed-due-to-coronavirus-kills-accuser
I love it when smug people try to make a funny "Ha ha Tom Cotton loves slavery" when all it shows is they were too stupid to comprehend the actual statements or so hopelessly infected with political bias that they can't resist accusing their ideological adversaries of being horrible people.
ReplyDeleteConsidering this, in more than a few cases, artificial intelligence probably would do a far better job! Compassionate decision-making not only is human and humane, but actually logical. Repeated, brutal and indifferent history has shown us not everyone with ten fingers and/or ten toes is fully “human,” in what “human” really means. A jail sentence is NOT a death sentence, and authorities must be held accountable.
ReplyDelete