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Are the civil rights of January 6 detainees being violated?
The warden of a D.C. jail and the director of the D.C. Department of Corrections are currently being held in contempt.
Jail officials failed to turn over information needed to approve surgery recommended four months ago for a January 6 defendant.
In this case, the Washington Post reports, the defendant suffered from broken bones and required surgery, which was effectively denied for four months as jail officials did not turn over information.
In a hearing, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said this action by jail officials “raises the possibility of deliberate mistreatment.”
“The failure of D.C. officials to turn over medical records is more than just inept and bureaucratic jostling of papers,” the federal judge added.
A federal judge is referring Biden’s Department of Justice to launch a civil rights investigation into the treatment of January 6 detainees.
“I find that the civil rights of the defendant have been abused,” Lamberth said.
Lamberth called the treatment of the defendant “inexcusable.”
The judge directly asked the jail officials, “Does no one care?”
Lamberth described their treatment of the defendant as “more than inept.”
“I don’t know if it’s because he’s a January 6th defendant or not,” the judge continued. “But I find this matter should be referred to the attorney general of the United States for a civil rights investigation into whether the D.C. Department of Corrections is violating the civil rights of January 6th defendants in this and maybe other cases.”
More on this story via Daily Wire:
The judge did not impose any further sanctions on jail officials and did not order the release of any inmates. The defendant in question is facing multiple felony charges stemming from the January 6 riot. Lamberth suggested that federal authorities may need to move the detainees to different jails to ensure their civil rights are not being violated.
The Washington Post added: The case spotlights spiraling frustration among U.S. judges over conditions at the long-troubled D.C. jail, specifically the impact of pandemic restrictions and crippling staff shortages at the facility housing 1,500 federal and local detainees in the nation’s capital.
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Conditions at the 45-year-old detention facility have long been criticized by inmates, lawyers and even judges. But the complaints reached new heights this spring after prisoner advocates criticized the prolonged confinement of detainees to stamp out the coronavirus pandemic. For roughly 400 days, jail officials imposed a 23-hour-a-day lockdown to enforce social distancing before conditions were eased this summer.
The report said that a lot of the problems that the January 6 defendants have raised with the way that they are being treated in the prison are not unique to defendants facing charges stemming from the Capitol riot. Other defendants, being held on unrelated charges, have voiced similar concerns.
