As of October 31, 2020, at least 231 people (and probably more) had died from Covid-19 in Texas jails, and 8 in 10 of them were in pretrial detention and hadn’t been convicted of a crime. This doesn’t count the inmates in Texas prisons who’ve died of Covid-19.
The state did little to prevent it: “Covid-19 has been allowed to ravage prison populations, harming inmates, correctional officers, and the surrounding communities for months,” Vox wrote in an article published on Friday, November 13, 2020 (read it here).
And that gives lawyers for the families an opening to sue the state and counties for negligence.
Here’s part of the legal problem they face: Those who died will never be brought to trial, and people are presumed innocent until convicted, so for all subsequent legal purposes — including tort claims — the state and county jail operators negligently killed innocent people, and for that, they’re going to owe millions for each person they killed.