Columbus authorities scrambling to ‘get people out’ of jail during coronavirus crisis
Gracie Johnson had been in the Muscogee County Jail for 472 days.
Standing Wednesday before Judge William Rumer, she wore more than a yellow women’s jail uniform, handcuffs and leg chains. A surgical mask covered her nose and mouth, a precaution against the novel coronavirus that has altered the way Columbus courts operate.
Charged with sexual exploitation of children and enticing a minor for indecent purposes, Johnson had not been indicted by a grand jury. After 90 days in jail, without indictment, she was entitled to a bond, under Georgia law, and she had one, for $135,000.
But she couldn’t afford it. “Ms. Johnson is indigent,” said defense attorney Robert Wadkins Jr. She probably couldn’t pay fourth of that, he told Rumer.
Rumer cut her bond to an even $100,000, and Johnson was returned to the jail, where Wednesday she was among 922 inmates in the facility off 10th Street at Sixth Avenue.
The next day, that dropped to 913.
As Georgia’s disease outbreak worsens, authorities here are scrambling to release those who can afford lowered bonds, and those accused of more minor offenses.
But the options are limited.
Emergency
Two emergency measures aimed at preventing the virus’ spread have left kinks in the criminal justice system that impede the flow of inmates through the jail.
One is that the Georgia Department of Corrections quit accepting new prisoners, so those convicted can’t be transferred to state prisons. The other is that the courts stopped holding trials and grand jury sessions, so no one in jail can be tried or indicted.
The only court hearings held now are those that may secure an inmate’s release, including bond hearings like Johnson’s.
“We can’t do anything but bond orders,” Senior District Attorney Don Kelly said afterward.
So prosecutors are working with defense attorneys to agree on what bonds they can, or to resolve pending cases to clear jail space.
Kelly said the DA’s office printed out case lists and asked each of its 16 attorneys who handle trials to go through and see which suspects can be released.
“I know everybody is doing everything they can to get people out,” he said.
On March 13, when Chief Judge Gil McBride declared an emergency in the six-county Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit that includes Columbus, the jail here held 961. That was a Friday. By the following Monday, it had 995.
With minor fluctuations, the tally has dropped steadily since. It went from 995 to 930 in a week.
Because the jail’s capacity is 1,069, clearing cells and dormitories not only reduces the number who could be infected, were the virus to gain entry, but allows space to spread the rest of the inmates out, to quarantine newcomers, and to isolate anyone showing symptoms.
“We’re social distancing in the dorms as much as we can,” said Sheriff Donna Tompkins, whose office is responsible for running the jail. Corrections officers are restricting the number of inmates allowed into “common areas” where they can mingle, she said.
On Wednesday, two inmates with high temperatures and other flu-like symptoms were sent to Piedmont Columbus Regional for examination. Treated for an upper respiratory ailment, both were sent back, and separated from the general jail population.
They were not tested at the hospital, under CDC guidelines. The health department collected samples Thursday to be tested for the virus, Tompkins said. That could take several days.
On Monday, she said neither inmate was showing symptoms, and their temperatures were back to normal. The jail still was waiting for the test results, she said.
Changes
The sheriff believes measures the jail has taken make it unlikely either inmate could have become infected there. One inmate had been in jail since October. The other had been there for 13 days, held in quarantine with other newcomers who are segregated from the general jail population for two weeks.
Among steps the jail has taken to prevent the virus’ spread are:
- Limiting inmates’ visitors. Although visits are conducted via video conferencing, and inmates and their families don’t touch, the room those families use was not sufficiently spacious to keep people apart. Now each inmate is allowed only one visit per week, limited to two people, and only 10 people can be in the room at one time. “We ask that children not come, but we will allow one child at a time,” the sheriff said.
- Screening anyone entering the jail. That includes not only a staff of 208 correction officers, but city maintenance workers and contractors. Everyone’s temperature is taken, though thermometers are in short supply now, Tompkins said.
- Moving inmates only in small groups. No longer does the sheriff’s staff move dozens of inmates to the Government Center for bond hearings, packing them into a holding cell until they’re called to court. Only seven were on Rumer’s docket Wednesday, and they were seated apart in the courtroom. “We’re not moving large numbers of inmates at all,” Tompkins said. “Any inmate that is going to a court hearing is wearing a mask.”
As the jail hustled to ensure no infection spread, prosecutors and defense attorneys collaborated to get suspects out.
“Prosecutors have been very busy going through their files,” said McBride, noting some old cases have been dismissed, and some resolved because defendants had been jailed long enough to have served whatever time they would have faced on their charges.
“The big picture is things are still moving,” the judge said.
The courts also have employed available technology to speed things along, using an electronic filing system instead of hardcopy documents to submit and sign orders, so less paperwork is being touched.
State Court Judge Andy Prather last week used Skype to take pleas online, while he was in the Government Center and inmates were on camera in a courtroom at the jail. Other judges are considering that.
Superior Court Judge Ben Land was getting his court set up to use Skype on Friday, but defense attorneys and prosecutors agreed to consent orders on the defendants’ bonds, so no hearings were necessary.
As these options prove to be reliable, some will continue after the emergency’s over, McBride said: “I think we’re going to be a lot more efficient as a result of this.”
Backlog
But first, the courts are going to have to clear a backlog, because attorneys also are taking this time to prepare cases for grand jury indictment and trial.
Should the judicial emergency end April 13, as scheduled, the first grand jury could meet the next day, on the Government Center’s ninth floor.
To have a grand jury meet now, in the midst of a virus outbreak, would be reckless. “It’s 23 people in a relatively small room,” Kelly said.
Similarly, packing dozens of people summoned for jury duty into the Government Center’s tight jury room on the ground floor would be dangerous.
But some cases were ready to go, before the crisis: Kelly this week was supposed to be prosecuting Brandon Senior, one of 80 murder suspects in the jail.
Once normal court operations resume, stacks of cases will be waiting. The first grand jury to return will have to pace itself over a couple of weeks, Kelly said.
“We have not stopped preparing cases to be indicted,” he said, adding, “Everybody in our office is working, either in the office or remotely.”
Chief Assistant Public Defender Steve Craft said attorneys can’t expect everything to return to normal in just a few weeks: “We cannot expect to do business the same in the immediate future.”
McBride agreed that once courts resume, they will have a pile of cases to clear. He used the colloquialism “the pig will have to work its way through the python.”
Meanwhile everyone waits to see whether the county can get through this emergency without an infection in the jail.
“A lot of people are concerned going in,” Wadkins said, speaking outside the courtroom after Gracie Johnson’s hearing Wednesday. The fear is that “once one case is there, everybody’s going to have it,” he said.
That could include attorneys with clients there.
“It’s just like anything else,” Wadkins said. “None of us wants to get it.”
This story was originally published March 28, 2020 at 6:00 AM.