A Bronx County judge agreed Thursday to release 28 people jailed in New York City after a planned transfer to state drug treatment programs became unavailable due to the coronavirus pandemic, giving New York's Legal Aid Society another victory in its ongoing attempts to reduce the population of city jails for health and safety reasons.

All 28 people had been found responsible for parole violations, but they had all been ordered to attend a state-run drug treatment program that would last, at the most, 90 days, according to the petition filed April 2 by Elon Harpaz, staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society's Parole Revocation Defense Unit.

Legal Aid's habeas petition, filed in Bronx Supreme Court, had argued that the inmates' due process rights were being violated as they were subjected to a severely increased risk of getting the novel coronavirus.

They were waiting in city jails in the middle of March, when the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision stopped transferring people from local custody to state custody as a coronavirus prevention measure, according to court papers.

"That decision has left the Petitioners in limbo, unable to obtain their release upon successful completion of a DOCCS-administered treatment program because they are unable to get to state custody to enter the program," Harpaz wrote. "Instead, they are sitting in jail, mostly at Rikers Island, waiting to be infected with COVID-19."

The Legal Aid Society has argued that the COVID-19 infection rate at Rikers Island is higher than in any municipality in the world, and typical prevention measures like physical distancing and meticulous sanitation procedures are often not possible inside the facility.

Acting Bronx County Supreme Court Justice Alvin Yearwood agreed to release the 28 people after Harpaz argued that each member of the group had pleaded guilty to parole violations because they expected a quick transfer to the drug treatment program, which itself had a designated end date.

Harpaz said in the news release Thursday, "We are glad that the Court recognized that their continued incarceration infringed upon basic due process rights and placed them each in grave danger of contracting COVID-19."

The group would not have been included in the 1,100 people accused of parole violations whose chance at release was announced by DOCCS on March 27, according to Harpaz, because they had already pleaded guilty to parole violations.

As of Thursday, 741 warrants for people accused of parole violations have been lifted statewide, including 264 in New York City, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. A spokeswoman for DOCCS said the majority of those people have been released, but some remain in custody for a variety of reasons, including because they've been charged with a different crime. The review of the 1,100 cases ongoing, the spokeswoman said.

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