OLYMPIA, Wash. (Legal Newsline) – The Washington Supreme Court won’t tell state rulemakers how to handle possible COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons.
In an opinion released July 23, the court rejected pleas from inmates who want to be three categories of offenders released to mitigate the chances of catching coronavirus.
“But the writ they seek asks us to encroach on the executive branch and exceed the court’s authority; it would require the judiciary to supervise the executive based on policies the legislature never approved, in direct violation of long recognized separation of powers principles,” Chief Justice Debra Stephens wrote.
“Without a showing an official in the executive branch has failed to perform a mandatory nondiscretionary duty, courts have no authority under law to issue a writ of mandamus – no matter how dire the emergency.”
The inmates have not proven that Gov. Jay Inslee and state health officials have acted with deliberate indifference toward the risk of a prison COVID-19 outbreak, the court ruled.
“We are not indifferent to the serious dangers faced by petitioners and other inmates at heightened risk of contracting COVID-19 in Washington’s correctional facilities, but how the governor and secretary address these dangers and also protect the public necessarily involves the exercise of discretionary authority that we cannot direct,” Stephens wrote.