A judge has ordered the Alaska Department of Corrections to allow in-person visitation between lawyers and their clients in jail, regardless of an inmate’s COVID-19 vaccination status.
The order comes as misdemeanor trials are set to resume April 19 and felony trials June 1, after being mostly put on pause for more than a year due to the pandemic.
The Department of Corrections had suspended all visitation at its facilities in March of 2020 as a precaution against the virus, which still infected 2,145 inmates and killed five.
Earlier this year as case counts declined and Alaska slipped into the minority of states still not allowing in-person meetings between lawyers and jailed clients, the Alaska Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed a lawsuit, saying in-person visits are crucial to building trust and providing effective legal counsel.
“You can build a relationship over the phone and over video conference, but it’s not the same quality relationship, right?” said Jeffrey Robinson, a former public defender and association member.
As part of the case against DOC, Robinson said the association received troubling statements from its members about clients not trusting them and getting shoddy legal advice from other inmates.
“They’ve never met their attorney, they don’t know what that person looks like,” Robinson said. “And so a lot of the attorneys that we were getting affidavits from had told us that their clients are just mistrustful of their advice, they’re turning to jailhouse lawyers.”
DOC announced last month it would allow in-person visits to resume between fully vaccinated inmates and lawyers. But the association said that wasn’t good enough, with the resumption of trials fast approaching, so they went back to court to ask for an injunction.
Superior Court Judge Una Gandbhir agreed, and granted the injunction in an order Monday, saying that continuing to prevent such visitation would cause “irreparable harm” to the inmate clients. She also noted DOC is not requiring its own employees to get vaccinated.
As of Wednesday, DOC said it had 2,518 inmates in custody and had fully vaccinated about 1,600 inmates.
DOC officials declined a request for an interview and did not respond to emailed questions about whether the department would appeal the order.
But Robinson, with the statewide Association of Defense Attorneys, said he’s heard anecdotally that DOC will not appeal and that lawyers are already scheduling in-person visits with clients for as soon as Thursday.
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April 08, 2021 at 06:24AM
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Judge orders state to allow in-person visits for lawyers and jailed clients, whether vaccinated or not - Alaska Public Media News
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