SALT LAKE CITY – A Utah State Prison inmate is suing the Utah Department of Corrections in an attempt to stop large groups of inmates shuffling from one building to another.
Damon Crist says the practice has led to large-scale COVID-19 outbreaks in prison from October onwards. The spread continued over the following months, infecting more than 2,600 prisoners, including 12 who later died.
“I am not seeking compensation. I am not asking to be released,” Crist told Deseret News on a phone call from Draper prison. “I’m just saying, ‘Look, the department is moving people recklessly. It causes mass outbreaks and it infects and kills people.’ ‘
Crist joins other inmates, claiming that his requests to see a doctor or nurse have gone unanswered. And his lawsuit comes amid calls for an investigation into how the prison has handled outbreaks.
“I think there is a need for a lot more transparency about the circumstances under which the deaths in custody took place, a lot more transparency about the medical care provided to people in custody, and that there really should be a legal audit,” said Sara Wolovick, an ACLU attorney who focuses on inmate rights.
Crist says the prison’s handling of the virus amounts to cruel and unusual punishment for inmates and violates a Utah Constitution prohibition against “undue severity” for those in prison. The prison also goes against its own employee behavior policies that endanger the safety of staff and inmates, he said.
In one example, workers instructed a sick prisoner who was short of breath and blacked out to “take a deep breath,” Crist said in his lawsuit.
He alleges deliberate indifference on the part of the state, a legal norm that was considered the threshold for successful legal claims against prisons and prisons. They are generally only held liable when it is clear they knew the medical care was inadequate, Wolovick said, creating an incentive for authorities not to scrutinize the care closely.
“The legal landscape for medical care for incarcerated people rewards ignorance on a practical level,” Wolovick said. But an outside review could provide details, she noted.
A spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Corrections declined comment, citing the pending legal action.
The agency has said it takes many factors into account when moving those under its care to new areas and is working with state and county health officials to decide how best to separate inmates who test positive from those. that test negative for COVID-19.
Crist says an October 23 initial move brought several COVID-19 to the Lone Peak facility where he lived at the time, he claims in a handwritten petition for extraordinary relief filed last month with Salt Lake’s 3rd District Court. City. During the moves, negative and positive inmates sat in the same dormitories for hours, he said.
“None of the transferred prisoners were tested for COVID-19, or even questioned if they showed symptoms,” he said in the trial.
It took a few days for him to become ill with a cough and fever. Crist said he tested positive for the first week of November, but still has trouble breathing and brain fog.
Some around him had trouble getting out of bed, he said, while others have no symptoms.
In total, 1,065 inmates and 63 staff are believed to have active cases of COVID-19, according to Tuesday’s department data, the most recent available.
He claims the Utah Department of Corrections does not have the resources to deal with massive outbreaks, with some nurses performing several COVID-19 tests without changing gloves.
Judge Keith Kelly last week ordered the department to respond to the charges within 30 days. The agency has not yet done so.
Crist, a paralegal, said he would like to finish his sentence for theft convictions so he can return to work managing construction projects. In any case, he tries to stop the movements until the inmates get a coronavirus vaccine. State health officials have said they expect state inmates to be vaccinated in March.
Crist also wants the judge to order correction workers to wear N95 masks, change gloves after each test, and establish a two-week quarantine protocol for any movements required due to a doctor’s order or significant threat.
Others have challenged the coronavirus protocols for inmate Utahns, but the previous legal efforts have proved unsuccessful.
The ACLU and defense attorneys filed a lawsuit in April in an attempt to enforce greater release of those awaiting trial, elderly inmates and medically vulnerable individuals, but the Utah Supreme Court rejected the offer on procedural grounds.
The judges found that the groups did not have enough prestige to bring the case, in part because they were not directly influenced by prison policies.
A federal judge in the Salt Lake City U.S. District Court similarly threw a lawsuit against federal inmates held in the Weber County Jail, but did not stop them from reviving the case in the future.
related stories
Annie Knox