CBS News and Minnesota Reformer Report on Suit Filed by Clemency Clinic on behalf of Prisoners Released During Covid Pandemic

The Law School's Clemency Clinic, run by Professor JaneAnne Murray, has filed a class action suit with the ACLU and Mitchell-Hamline's LAMP Clinic to halt the plan of the Minnesota Department of Corrections to return to prison the remaining 15 prisoners released state-wide due to their medical vulnerability to COVID-19.  The Clemency Clinic's client, Tanya Wagner, one of the name plaintiffs, was released in part because she was pregnant.  She has since given birth and spent the last almost eight months bonding at home with her infant.  Professor Chinmoy Guljarani, Director of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, filed a declaration in support of the motion for a temporary restraining order saying that the "maternal infant separation due to abrupt incarceration of the mother is likely to have harrowing consequences on the infant, and by virtue of their lasting effects, could negatively affect several generations of the impacted family."  CBS quoted Professor Murray: "Ms. Wagner, through her extraordinary rehabilitation, does not deserve this sudden disruption of the eight-month bond she has built with her newborn."  Murray's full statement is available here in the ACLU's press release.