PROVIDENCE — With approval from the Rhode Island Supreme Court, a group of 52 prisoners, all short-termers, were poised on Friday to leave prison early to serve two weeks of quarantine and rejoin a society living under significant public health restrictions.

The high court’s issuance of an order making provisions for that release came at the request of prosecutors, prison authorities and public defenders.

Their rationale was that releasing a small segment of the prison population can help protect the wider population, as well as staff and others, from COVID-19, the potentially lethal condition caused by the novel coronavirus that has swept the globe.

The 52 prisoners selected for possible release were among 200 with less than 91 days remaining in their prison terms.

Attorney General Peter Neronha said Friday night that each of the prisoners in the group was serving time for a nonviolent offense.

“I think the court did a fair thing here,” he said.

The Supreme Court’s order establishes a process whereby superior courts and district courts will enter orders providing for the prisoners’ “immediate release” subject to an agreement reached by the Department of Corrections, Neronha’s office and the Rhode Island Public Defender. At the same time, the courts shall also reduce the prisoners’ sentences under the order.

The high court also established an emergency process in the lower courts for the potential release of additional prisoners from the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston.

The first requirement for eligibility for that process is that the person’s prison term is already set to expire within 90 days.

After that, eligible prisoners must meet other criteria. For example, they cannot be imprisoned for domestic violence or for violating a no-contact order. They cannot be subject to a no-contact order that restrains them from contact with a particular person.

Each prisoner must establish to the satisfaction of corrections officials that he or she will be released “to a stable setting.” The prisoner must have agreed to comply with 14 days of quarantine following the release, to self-monitoring for COCID-19 and health monitoring by the state.

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Prisoners who have tested positive, shown symptoms of COVID-19 or have not been cleared by corrections medical staff are disqualified from early release under the order.

Meanwhile, prisoners seeking early release must appear before a judicial officer in each court who will consider motions for sentence reductions.

The group of 52 prisoners is smaller than the group of 76 prisoners who had been slated for release earlier in the process.

The high court’s order says the three entities that had reached the earlier agreement had reached consensus on release for the 52 prisoners earlier on Friday.

mreynold@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter: @mrkrynlds