While COVID-19 has put most Americans on home-confinement as a tactic in slowing the spread of the deadly virus; jail inmates sit in crowded and often overpopulated jails with hundreds or even thousands of other prisoners. Inmates shutter at the deafening sound of each cough and sneeze heard throughout the jail.
New inmates are booked into jails and tossed into general population each day as the death toll rises. Many of these inmates are non-violent or first-time offenders, and some are over the age of 50 and/or have been diagnosed with a condition that makes them more vulnerable to COVID-19.
According to the Florida Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform, nearly 200 people in Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) custody and more than 120 FDC staff members across the state have tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 27, 2020. Jails are amplifiers of infectious diseases like the coronavirus because the precautions that can stop the disease from spreading such as social distancing — are nearly impossible to achieve in our jails.
Per Florida Supreme Court Order 20-15 and Administrative Order 2020-008, the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida has suspended assorted proceedings and hearings for an unspecified time, addressing only “mission critical” cases, such as first appearances, detention hearings, terminations of parental rights, issuance of warrants/authorization of wiretaps, and other emergency matters as determined by each judge. One of these “mission critical” court appearances being allowed by Sixth Circuit Judges is a Change of Plea Hearing. This hearing gives the inmate the opportunity to withdrawal a previous Not Guilty plea and enter a plea of Guilty or No Contest.
For many non-violent or low-level offenders, this Change of Plea hearing might be the only ticket to escaping the COVID-19 petri dish we call county jail. In most cases the judge will set a bond amount, in which the inmate can pay to the courts to be released. This is done to ensure that the defendant will return for later court dates. Nonetheless, statistics show that a large majority of those arrested live below the national poverty line and simply cannot afford a bond. In a 2014 study conducted by the Prison Policy Initiative, the median annual incomes for inmates prior to incarceration and between the age of 27-42 years was $13,890 for women and $19,650 for men. For minorities, those numbers are substantially lower. The same study shows black inmates had an average medium income of $15,180, and for Hispanics it is $15,780.
Under normal circumstances, these inmates may choose to give their attorney time to receive, review discovery, and craft a quality defense to their charges. Their defense attorney, usually a public defender, may have time to depose state witnesses and locate defense witnesses to support their client’s defense. Yet currently, the system has come to a screeching halt as State Attorneys have reduced the amount of staff on duty, which has led to extended delays in sending discovery to defense and often takes months to be sent. Because State Attorneys are currently not permitting depositions of their witnesses, the defense cannot construct or present a proper defense in a timely manner. Thus, the defendant is faced with only two options: Sit in an overpopulated jail during a deadly international pandemic or accept the terms of a plea deal as dictated by the State Attorney’s Office.
Taking a deal with the State may be a ticket for a release from the hell of a crowded jail with no valid assurance of safety from the coronavirus, but it also may come with the heavy tag of being a convicted felon which is a life sentence not to be taken lightly. It can also force a vulnerable defendant to accept the life-long label of sex offender or sex predator without given the constitutional opportunity to build a proper defense because of the fear of staying in jail during a deadly and highly contagious pandemic. The procedural due process rights of those inmates who were charged and have sat in jail during this pandemic were and continue to be compromised, and it has led to severely injurious outcomes.
So while a defendant may take the oath and state to the judge that he/she openly and knowingly accepts the terms of a plea deal offered by prosecution, many inmates are merely trying to escape the misery of being stuck in a crowded jail where they are unable to be thoroughly safeguarded from the worst pandemic of our lifetime.