The Legal Aid Society filed a fourth lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, Bronx County today on behalf of 100 individuals currently held at Rikers Island on a non-criminal technical parole violations. These individuals, by virtue of their age and/or underlying medical condition, are particularly vulnerable to serious illness or death if infected by COVID-19, and jail conditions make it impossible to protect them, as reported by HuffPost.

Today’s filing is the continuation of lawsuits public defenders have brought for vulnerable clients over the last several days. Legal Aid so far has secured the release of over 130 people through mass writ filings and many more via individual motions.

This lawsuit seeks the immediate release of clients from jails in New York City on the grounds that continuing to hold them on parole warrants constitutes deliberate indifference to the risk of serious medical harm in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and the New York State constitutional right to due process.