Marge goes to jail
Some background on the DC jail visit by House oversight members today.
There are two wings of the DC jail: The Central Detention Facility (where most DC inmates are housed) and Central Treatment Facility (where Jan. 6 defendants, pretrial and post-conviction, are housed).
In fall 2021, amid rising complaints by Jan. 6 defendants about the conditions of CTF — and a federal judge’s contempt order — US marshals did a surprise inspection
They found that conditions at *CDF* were abysmal and ordered removal of 100s of prisoners.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/02/feds-transfer-prisoners-dc-jail-518604
But the marshals found conditions in *CTF* where Jan. 6 defendants were housed to be “largely appropriate.”
Judges and advocates for Jan. 6 defendants have remained skeptical — and for good reason. There’s no question the DC jail had major issues and the same management running the main jail also runs CTF.
Flash forward to this month, US District Court Judge McFadden indicated in a hearing that conditions of the main jail have improved markedly since the Nov. 2021 report, and marshals had been moving inmates back in.
Read @JordanOnRecord on this
In fact, McFadden said due to Jan. 6 defendants’ complaints (and fueled somewhat by Covid-era restrictions) the jail made unprecedented accommodations to help prisoners access evidence in their cases.
There are still disagreements about whether access to evidence is sufficient, and different judges remain concerned about that.
But there’s no indication that Jan. 6 defendants have been treated differently or worse than main jail population.
And DC officials have groused that their longstanding complaints about the jail went largely ignored until Jan. 6 defendants started speaking up. In a weird way, it has led to scrutiny that has benefited the main jail population.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/10/dc-officials-jan-6-prisoners-jail-520707
And a reminder: Of the ~20 Jan. 6 defendants who remain in the DC jail, nearly all are charged with crimes of violence, and several have been convicted at trial and no longer enjoy presumption of innocence.
There used to be a larger cohort of pretrial Jan. 6 defendants here before trials began to happen in large numbers. Many of them have been convicted and transferred to jails near their homes. A few others are in nearby Alexandria and Northern Neck facilities.
This is also key, in statement from Rep. RASKIN ahead of the visit: None of the Republican members of Congress claiming there are “political prisoners”
in the DC jail have named or identified a single one — because doing so would subject the claim to scrutiny.
Originally tweeted by Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) on March 24, 2023.
Lol. They did a good deed without meaning to. Improving the conditions for regular old criminals was hardly on their to-do list.