The case of a suspected thief with a mild fever and the snifflesarrested in Titusville and then released to his mother after three days of solitary confinement in the county jail shows the struggle Brevard's cops and courts are having as they try to adaptjustice in the time of COVID-19.
Corrections deputies at the Brevard County Jail were in fact so concerned that 23-year-old James Jarvis could be infected with the new coronavirus when he was brought there on misdemeanor charges by Titusville Police on Mar. 26, that the deputies made him wear a surgical mask forhis mugshot.
Deputies also would not let him appear at his own courtroom appearancein the jail for fear he was contagious. Jarvis was also denied the ability to post bail or confer with an attorney.
But Jarvis didn’t need to be there in the first place.
Brevard County’s public defender Blaise Trettis said his client would have been an ideal candidate to be released with a notice to appear in court as permitted under an administrative order signed on March 19 by the 18th Circuit’s top judge, Lisa Davidson.
The goal of Davidson’s order was to empower sheriff’s offices in Brevard and Seminole counties to initiate the release ofnonviolent offenders rather than risk introducing coronavirus into the jail population or overcrowding during this pandemic.
Under the order, Trettis said, Jarvis could have been released and place under electronic monitored supervision from the get go. That is alreadyhappening in Seminole County, which shares Brevard's judicial circuit.
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Though voluntary, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey has been, so far at least, staunchly opposed to releasing inmates from the jail.
"That is not Brevard County. That is not gonna happen here," Ivey said at a press conference on Mar. 23. "My first responsibility is to the citizens of this community and the victims of their crimes, so we are not going to be working to get anyone out of jail.
But as the Jarviscase shows, it isn't clear in Brevard County what should be done with sick and potentially contagious suspects, from their arrest and booking, to respecting their constitutional rights of due process.
"This was agood example of how the chief judge’s administrative order would have been useful in this situation because this defendant would never have been brought into the jail and isolated like he was and exposing others to risk," said Trettis, who wasappointed to represent Jarvis, but only became aware of the case after his release.
The administrative order, Trettis said, was designed to precisely avoid COVID-19 from being brought into the jail.
"Exactly what's been done to try to prevent that (COVID-19 contagion) from happening was ignored in this case," he told FLORIDA TODAY.
Jarvis's bizarreexperiencebegins with his totally ordinary Mar. 26 arrest byTitusville policeonmisdemeanor charges of petit theft, resisting recoveryof goods to a merchant,and driving on a suspended license.
Soon after his detention, his girlfriend told the officers that Jarvishad been suffering congestion and feeling slightly feverishfor several days. Titusville Policedecided to take him to the Brevard County Jail anyway.
Although Titusville police make no mention of Jarvis being ill in his arrest record, the arresting officers appeared to have told the jail deputies he was sick, because the deputies made the police take him to a nearby hospital for screening before they would book him. At the hospital, Jarvis told FLORIDA TODAY over the phone, he was tested for everything but COVID-19.
As all tests were negative, Titusville police brought Jarvis back to the jail for booking and the mugshot with him wearing a purplish-bluesurgical mask over his face. Later, he was pulled out of his cell to take a second mugshot with his face uncovered.
"They told me to hold my breath," Jarvis said.
Jarvis then spent the next several days in jaillocked in an isolated room lit 24-hours and with no access to a phone, or a lawyer and no ability to post his bond, which,initially set at $1,500, would have likely been a matter of a $150 deposit with a bail bondsman.
When he was first booked,Jarvis said, he had a few minutes to use the phone, before being rushed off to his cell.He was unable to reachhis mother, who needed to deliver medication which he told jail nurses he was required to take, or counsel, ora bondsman.
"After that I was never given access," he said. "I was railroaded or given the runaround."
Suddenly on Sunday, he was released, not outthe front entrance, but a rear gate"so as to avoid a panic," he recalled a sergeant telling him at the time, with little explanation.
"They escorted me out, wearing masks and spraying disinfectant behind me. They treated me like I was some kind of leper," Jarvis recalled, saying he had the impression thedeputies had no protocol for what to do with him and were making it up as they went along.
The ordealcould have been avoided, sparing the Brevard County Sheriff's Office the headache, effort and expense of keeping a nonviolent minor criminal like Jarvis in isolation for nearly four days.
But from the time of his arrest to his release, the case was marred by confusion.
Video of Jarvis's initial appearance hearing at the Brevard County Jail — which Jarvis was barred from participating inprecisely because he was sick, even though he had no legal representation — makes it clear that the BCSO was taking precautions as if he had COVID-19.
"He may be contagious?" presiding Judge Kenneth Friedlandaskedat the Friday hearing, the day after Jarvis's arrest. "Yes, your honor," the deputy responded.
Friedland thenincreased Jarvis's bond from $1,500 to $15,000 and empowered the sheriff's officeto release Jarvis on his own recognizance for the purpose ofseeking medical treatment onthe conditionsof self-isolation and that he not return to Walmart.
"He may be contagious with possibly, possibly the COVID19 virus," the judge said."I think under the circ*mstances that he's a potential danger to the community."
According to court spokesperson Michelle Kennedy, Judge Friedland's would have releasedJarvis ifhe had he known that Jarvis had already been taken to the hospital the day beforethe initial hearing.
But Brevard County Sheriff's Office spokesman Tod Goodyearsaid the sheriff's office interpreted thejudge's intent as "the intent to release the inmate in the event the defendant required transport for medical examination and clearance."
In an email Kennedy said a sheriff's office staff member "realized there was a breakdown in communication and set out to correct it by personally reaching out to the Judge," who issued a verbalorder for Jarvis' release on Sunday, and formalized it with a written order the next day.
Typically the state attorney's office would be involved, but Todd Brown, the spokesman for State Attorney Phil Archersaid while they wouldn't have been opposed to the release they were "not involved" in initiating it.
The Judge's written release order,confusingly, says a motion from the defendant initiates the release, butTrettis said his office didn'tfile a motion, and Jarvis said, "I wasn't allowed to file any motions."
"Under normal circ*mstances, the defendant might not have qualified for an ROR, but our current situation is far from normal," Kennedy wrote.
But Trettis, the public defender, doesn't buy the explanation.
After all, he asked, if the Judge's intention was for Jarvis to be released, the increase of bail from $1,500 to $15,000 doesn't square. The Judge's own words supporting the action are that the maybe contagious Jarvis is "a potential danger to the community," and clearly states that the ROR is for medical transport only.
But the sheriff already hadthe ability to take inmates to a hospital, Trettis said.
"Why didn't the jail allow him to post $1,500 bail?"
"If the jail doesn't permit you to use a phone to call a bail bondsman then the jail is denying you your constitutional right to bail under the Eighth Amendment ofthe United States Constitution," Trettis said.
"The result of everything that happens seems to be thateverything that could possibly done to keep him in jail was done, knowing that he was ill or at least could very well have been ill and was thought to have the coronavirus," Trettis said."That makes absolutely no sense."
For Trettis the mishandling of Jarvis's case is firstly the fault of the sheriff for not making use of the Mar. 19 administrative order, and secondly the fault of the judge for seemingly making it harder for Jarvis to get out by massively increasing his bail.
"The other part is is why did the Titusville Police Department decidethat they needed to bring him to jail?I mean, he was charged with misdemeanors for which he could have been issued a notice to appear," Trettis said.
Trettis believes that mayalready be happening as initial appearances at the jail are down by half from 40 to 20 per day.
Sheriff Ivey, on Wednesday Apr. 1, after Jarvis had been released,announcedthat one inmate had been tested for COVID-19at the jail and that those results were pending."But." he added, "We expect them to be negative."The BCSO wouldnot say ifhe was referring to Jarvis.
Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon is a watchdogreporter forFLORIDA TODAY.Contact him at 321-355-8144, or asassoon@floridatoday.com. Twitter:@alemzs
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