GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Three Michigan inmates have filed a federal lawsuit alleging they have essentially been given death sentences as the coronavirus spreads through the state’s prison system.

Ten inmates have died of COVID-19 in Michigan prisons as of Monday, April 13, records show.

The lawsuit comes just days after a federal judge rejected a similar filing that complained of “imminent danger” of COVID-19 in state prisons.

The prisoners in the most recent case asked that they be released from their prison sentences and monitored by electronic tether. They are being held in Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kincheloe in the Upper Peninsula.

“There is no safe way of assuring that Plaintiff’s will not contract the deadly virus, rendering basically a death sentence,” Virgil Green, 55, wrote in the lawsuit.

“The Coronavirus disease has now reached the Michigan Department of Corrections and caused a steady rising death toll. Prisoners are encouraged to practice social distances of about six feet, which is virtually impossible due to prisoner overcrowding capacity.”

Green is serving 23 years, nine months to 50 years in prison for an April 2003 armed robbery in Wayne County. Two others in prison for armed robbery are also named as plaintiffs.

They filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Heidi Washington, director of the state Department of Corrections, and Chippewa warden Connie Horton.

There have been no positive tests for the coronavirus at Chippewa Correctional Facility. An inmate was tested but the result was negative.

In all, 416 inmates have tested positive throughout the Michigan prison system, with 10 deaths. Four of those deaths occurred at Parnall Correctional Facility in Jackson. Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater has two.

Of 169 Department of Corrections staff who contracted COVID-19, two have died, records showed.

U.S. District Judge Janet Neff recently dismissed a lawsuit filed by Juivonne Littlejohn, 62, who is held at Baraga Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula.

No inmates at Baraga have tested positive for the virus.

“In addition, Plaintiff is housed in level V (maximum-security) housing. Therefore, Plaintiff undoubtedly has his meals delivered to his cell, and his contact with other prisoners is highly limited,” Neff wrote.

“The mere fact that Plaintiff is currently a prisoner within the MDOC does not mean that he is at a high risk of contracting COVID-19. In fact, the very nature of Plaintiff’s housing appears to be a form of social distancing.”

Littlejohn was not in “imminent danger” as he claimed, the judge said.

Littlejohn is serving life without parole in the Feb. 9, 1982, killing of state police Trooper Craig A. Scott in a traffic stop on U.S. 127.

The inmate has filed about 60 federal lawsuits in Michigan, with three or more considered frivolous, so he could not go forward without paying a $400 filing fee unless he could provide he was “under imminent danger of serious physical injury,” U.S. District Judge Gordon Quist wrote in a previous complaint Littlejohn filed.

The Department of Corrections contends that it has worked to keep both inmates and staff safe. Prisons stopped allowing visits with inmates and staff screen everyone entering a facility for signs of COVID-19.

Every inmate has been provided three face masks produced by Michigan State Industries. Transfers of inmates and staff between facilities has been limited. Prisons have been authorized to use bleach for cleaning and have extra soap and cleaning products available in common areas.

Telephones are cleaned before and after use. There is also a process to assess inmates with possible COVID-19 symptoms.

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