By Melissa Brown
Montgomery Advertiser
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An inmate at the Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery have signed their names to a lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons, asking a federal judge to order officials to begin processing inmates to home confinement, compassionate release or to another prison to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
A federal judge on Friday ordered multiple prisoners, who wished to sign on to the initial lawsuit, to file separately in the court.
The Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery has not reported outbreak levels of infection. In fact, only two active cases were reported among staff and none in the inmate population as of Friday.
But in court filings in recent weeks, multiple men say lax protective measures and continued movement in and out of the prison by guards and inmates who work on Maxwell Air Force Base is putting the prison population at increased risk.
Nearly 80 federal prisoners across the country have died from COVID-19 complications, according to the most recent data release by BOP, and the pandemic has prompted multiple lawsuits from prisoners and their supporters.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a federal judge’s order to begin removing 800 inmates in an Ohio prison, according to a NBC News report. The Supreme Court order will allow the federal government additional time to challenge the federal order.
The American Civil Liberties Union says 9 prisoners have died and at least 20% of the population has been infected by coronavirus at Elkton Federal Correctional Institution.
James Nekvasil, Jr., the initial Montgomery inmate who filed the lawsuit against the BOP, said in court filings he was previously incarcerated at Elkton for two years and believes the same conditions that caused a fatal outbreak in Ohio are primed to happen in Alabama.
“This is not a request for mass release with no control,” Nekvasil said in a filing. " ... [We are] begging for interdiction before its [too] late, not like Elkton, or even watching the infection grow in neighborhoods around prisons due to staff’s interactions, especially, since they are not wearing protective gear unless a senior executive staff member is present.”
On April 3, as coronavirus hot spots began emerging in jails and prisons across the country, U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued an order to federal prisons to officials to “immediately maximize” prisoners who could serve their sentence in home confinement. But critics across the country have said the aftermath of Barr’s order was “confusing and chaotic,” USA Today reported earlier this spring, and inmates at Montgomery’s prison say the same. In federal court filings, multiple Montgomery inmates say prison officials told inmates everyone in the facility would be eligible for release to home confinement and they should contact family to begin making arrangements, before backtracking on those claims.
One inmate, Reginald McKenzie, expressed concern about the rising coronavirus numbers in Montgomery, recently deemed a city to watch by an internal White House virus task force. McKenzie said that a dorm with 40 men, 4 sinks and no cleaning supplies could become an “incubator” for the virus.
Another inmate, Torry Demonbreun, submitted a filing asking the federal judge to be “proactive” in the case, even though no one has died at the prison.
“The BoP has proven its inability in other federal prisons by allowing inmates to die,” Demonbreun said. “Please do not let them further prove this inability with us.”
Demonbreun said staff at FPC regularly interact with staff who are not wearing masks and who do not change gloves when interacting with inmates.
“Staff require that we, as inmates, don a mask 100% of the time in their presence,” Demonbreun wrote. “This tells me that staff understand that they need to be protected from inmates but that inmates do not need to be protected from staff. We live in a closed community, meaning that the virus must be brought into the facility. In this case, the mode of transport is the staff of FPC Montgomery, yet they refuse to protect us from themselves.”
In his filing, Demobreun also expressed concerns about inmate workers who leave the facility daily and return to the dorms.
In April, a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson confirmed to the Montgomery Advertiser that “up to” 20 prisoners are deemed essential workers authorized to perform “essential work” for Maxwell Air Force Base. According to Unicor, the Department of Justice business that employs inmate workers, it provides staff for laundry services on Maxwell.
“The assignment is not mandatory, rather inmates may volunteer,” Sue Allison, with the BOP Office of Public Affairs, said in April. “Those who volunteer are provided all PPE materials such as masks, gloves, and gowns while working; they have no contact with the public. The inmates are transported on the UNICOR bus thru staging and when they return, medical staff check their temperatures before they can return to their housing unit.”
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