Inmates Fearing Coronavirus Appeal To Federal Judge For Release

NEW HAVEN, CT — In federal court, two Connecticut inmates are begging judges to undo the decisions of state prison officials who have already rejected pleas for emergency release.

One inmate, identified as "John Doe" in publicly available legal filings, was the subject of a petition to the U.S. District Court filed last week by the Connecticut Innocence Project, which is a unit within the Connecticut public defender system.

In the past, the Connecticut Innocence Project has used DNA evidence to expose and correct wrongful convictions. In Doe's case, the attorneys aren't arguing their their 50-year-old client was wrongfully convicted, but that he is facing mortal danger by staying behind bars.

"He is HIV positive, suffers from hypertension, and is obese," the Innocence Project argued in a May 24 petition seeking Doe's emergency release on bail. "Mr. Doe is at high risk of exposure to COVID-19 in prison. He is aware that other inmates have COVID-19, that correctional officers have the virus as well."

According to state Department of Correction, 792 inmates and 378 staff have contracted coronavirus since March. Seven inmates have died, the most recent a 60-year-old man who died Tuesday, less than four weeks after he was transferred for treatment to UConn Health from his previous home in the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers.

While Doe's case is just beginning, the Innocence Project is preparing for a Friday hearing on the case of John Pittman, 66, who is described in a petition to federal court as a "model prisoner" who reformed himself in the decades following a 1987 murder conviction.

Pittman has Hepatitis C and health conditions that put him him "multiple high-risk categories for severe disease," the attorneys argued in a May 6 filing that sought a federal judge's order to release Pittman on emergency bail. (The Innocence Project is also challenging Pittman's original murder conviction, which relied on "largely circumstantial evidence," the filing contends.)

In April, Doe and Pittman submitted requests for compassionate release to the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles. Both were denied.

"Unfortunately," Richard Sparaco, executive director of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, wrote in his rejection letter to Pittman, "he does not meet the eligibility criteria outlined in the statute as he is not debilitated, incapacitated or infirmed as a result of his condition(s)."