MANCHESTER, NH – The administration of the Valley Street jail has a “cavalier” attitude when it comes to treatment of inmates who have tested positive for COVID-19, a Superior Court judge said in ordering the release to home confinement of a man who tested positive for the coronavirus at the state’s largest jail.
Judge Charles S. Temple presided Wednesday in Hillsborough County Superior Court Southern District at a WebEx emergency bail hearing for William James, 37, of Hudson. He is being detained in the jail on charges of stalking and witness tampering in a domestic-related case.
According to court documents, James, who suffers from liver disease, tested positive for COVID-19 on Christmas Eve.
In his order, Temple described a jail where James is housed with another positive inmate in a cell in the classification unit where new inmates are brought in daily. There is only one ventilation system in that unit with air flowing out of the cells from a space under each door and where staff, not subjected to any COVID-19 screening, rotate in and out of the unit to other areas of the jail.
“Thus, there is a real risk that the defendant could transmit COVID-19 to new inmates or staff and then those individuals could be transferred to other parts of the facility without ever being tested,” Temple said.
Temple, in the order issued Thursday, said not every inmate suffering from an illness should be granted bail. Jails and prisons, he wrote, generally have medical wards that can attend to the basic health care needs of their inmates.
“In this case, however, the Court is deeply troubled by the cavalier attitude that HCHOC (Hillsborough County House of Corrections) has shown towards its inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Temple wrote.
He noted the jail’s “abject failure” in identifying and appropriately isolating high-risk inmates. He said testing at the jail has been “virtually non-existent” and that although the pandemic has been ongoing for nine months only 11 inmates were ever tested for the virus. Nine of the tests were administered per court orders to transfer inmates to the New Hampshire State Hospital or the Secure Psychiatric unit at the State Prison. Of those 11 tests, two were positive; one of them was James’ test.
Jail Superintendent Willie Scurry testified 99 staff members were tested with 37 positive results, a positive rate of more than 37 percent.
Temple said Scurry, in his testimony, acknowledged multiple times that he is unaware of the pertinent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services.
“Indeed, it is abundantly clear from the testimony of Superintendent Scurry and Health Administrator (Denise) Hartley that HCHOC has acted in a manner that exhibits deliberate indifference to the health of its inmates by disregarding the substantial risk of COVID-19 to high-risk inmates like the defendant,” Temple said.
The judge said he would not review other examples of deliberate indifference on the part of the jail related to mask-wearing, quarantine and testing. “Suffice it to say that the deliberate indifference at the facility to the COVIDi-19 pandemic, particularly as it relates to high-risk inmates, is troubling at best,” Temple wrote.
He said circumstances surrounding James’ incarceration violated both the CDC’s and NHDHHS guidelines for correctional facilities.
In ordering James be released to home confinement at his mother’s residence, Temple said the jail’s obvious failure to implement state and federal guidance dealing with the COVIDi-19 pandemic “in any meaningful fashion” resulted in the Court having “no confidence that the defendant will receive appropriate treatment for the potential severe complications that could arise from his COVID-19 infection while incarcerated.”
Temple ordered James’ release on personal recognizance bail with conditions including he stay at his mother’s home and have no contact with the alleged victim.
Public Defender Elliot Friedman, in motions filed in the court, said his client asked for the emergency bail hearing because of the rapid spread of COVID-19 in the jail. James told the attorney that several inmates on his unit displayed symptoms of the virus but none was tested, taken to a separate unit or hospitalized but remained confined to their cells with signs posted on the door.
Others experiencing symptoms were scared to say anything to jail staff because they believe they will not receive any treatment and will only be locked in their cells with no treatment.
James, he said, was not asking for a “get out of jail free card” and recognizes he may well need to return to jail once the COVID risk subsides or as part of a plea deal.
“But he is scared for his life and asks the Court to take that into consideration,” Friedman wrote.
