DETROIT, MI (WTVB) – A class action lawsuit has been filed by a group of prisoners, including one who has been housed at the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, against the Michigan Department of Corrections over how the department has reacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Wednesday.
It claims the prisoner’s eighth amendment rights preventing cruel and unusual punishment have been violated since they have been exposed to coronavirus.
According to the 56-page lawsuit, “despite the ticking time bomb that COVID-19 represents, MDOC has failed to implement necessary or adequate policies and practices throughout its prisons.”
It adds the department’s response to the pandemic has been “woefully inadequate”.
Lakeland prisoner Lamont Heard is among the plaintiffs while one of the four defendants named in the suit was Lakeland Warden Bryan Morrison. The suit alleged the 42-year-old Heard was told by medical staff that since some inmates in his unit had already tested positive and exposed others, there was no reason to quarantine any of them. In addition, Heard claims he was told by both medical and unit officers not to request medical care unless it was severe. But when he asked what is considered severe, no one would tell him.
Heard is serving a life in prison sentence for a 1995 murder in Pontiac.
The M.D.O.C. says on its web site it has been leading the nation when it comes to consistent testing of the prisoner population when they have symptoms of COVID-19.
