The Legal Aid Society filed several mass habeas petitions which secured the release of hundreds of medically vulnerable people at Rikers Island during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We argued that our clients, by virtue of their age and/or underlying medical condition, were particularly vulnerable to serious illness or death if infected by COVID-19.  COVID-19 spread rapidly through the City’s jails in March and April 2020, and at the time of the filings, a majority of the total jail population had a confirmed positive test result. Legal Aid argued that New York City’s failure to release these people violated the Fourteenth Amendment.