Resource: Belton v. Gautreaux

Belton v. Gautreaux is a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of people imprisoned at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison in Louisiana. The lawsuit and an accompanying motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) seek the immediate release of a subclass of people who are particularly medically vulnerable, and demands a total overhaul of the virus transmission prevention procedures within the facility in order to comply with prevailing guidelines around reducing viral transmission to decrease the risk for the remaining detainees. The complaint addresses the notorious facility’s failure to provide adequate medical care, protection against outbreaks of infectious disease, or safe and sanitary facilities—the people housed there do not even have consistent access to soap. The complaint and TRO warn that the inevitability of an uncontrollable coronavirus outbreak in the facility—there are already dozens of confirmed cases—renders the continued detention of medically vulnerable individuals a potential death sentence, and the lack of preventative measures creates a needlessly heightened risk for all of the people held there.