The ACLU filed two class action lawsuits on behalf of prisoners at Lompoc and Terminal Island, claiming officials mishandled coronavirus outbreaks.
The American Civil Liberties Union on Saturday filed a pair of class-action lawsuits on behalf of federal prisoners at Lompoc and Terminal Island, claiming officials mishandled coronavirus outbreaks at the facilities that have infected a combined total of 1,775 inmates, killing 10.
Overcrowding makes it impossible for prisoners to maintain social distancing or take other precautions, but officials have refused to consider the majority of inmates for release into home confinement despite directives that they do so, according to the lawsuits. The refusal amounts to cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the 8th Amendment, the suits claim.
There, inmates sleep on folding cots three feet from the floor, and up to 60 prisoners share four toilets, four sinks and four showers, according to the lawsuit. Although the men’s estates are not named as plaintiffs, the lawsuit says it seeks to have other medically vulnerable inmates who live at the prison avoid their fates.
Yonnedil Torres, 24, an inmate at the penitentiary who suffers from chronic asthma, was ignored for five days after he developed symptoms that included a fever and body aches, the lawsuit states. He was only tested for the coronavirus and found to be positive after he collapsed in his cell due to acute respiratory shock, according to the complaint.
After testing negative for the virus, inmate Felix Samuel Garcia, 36, was abruptly moved from the low-security prison in Lompoc to the penitentiary, according to the lawsuit. There, he’s being housed in a makeshift cell block set up in a warehouse, where he is not allowed to change into clean clothes or shower and must wet his body with sink water to stay clean, according to the lawsuit.
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