Judge orders Burnside jail to end segregation for 2 men awaiting trial
Blair Rhodes | CBC News | Posted: August 7, 2020 6:22 PM | Last Updated: August 7, 2020
Jail has 2 weeks to come up with a solution
Nova Scotia's largest jail has been given two weeks to get two men out of segregation.
Rae'Heem Downey has been held in segregation at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Burnside for 201 days.
Andre Gray has been held in the same jail in the same conditions for 267 days. They're allowed out of their cells for an hour a day.
Downey, 21, is awaiting trial on a charge of second-degree murder in connection with a shooting in Eastern Passage in June, 2018. That trial was supposed to be held next month, but jury trials have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gray, 24, is facing sexual assault and human trafficking charges and was supposed to go to trial in November. But those dates, too, are unlikely because of disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Men in protective custody
In a hearing last month, officials with the jail testified that both Downey and Gray had a history of non-compliance with the rules and had committed assaults and other violations.
The officials also said that both men are in protective custody and cannot safely be placed in the jail's general population. Authorities had tried to move the pair to another jail but that facility wouldn't take them.
"In essence, the Respondents argue that the present placement is reasonable because there are no other available options," Justice Kevin Coady wrote in a decision released Friday.
"In other words, it is the best it can do in the circumstances."
'Difficult' and 'damaging'
But Coady said keeping inmates locked up for 23 hours a day without human contact or activity to pass the time would be "difficult" and "damaging," especially since neither man knows how long the segregation will last.
"If it were a temporary arrangement, I would find it reasonable. However, to leave them in segregation indefinitely is not acceptable," the judge wrote.
"I make this decision on the evidence recognizing the difficulty faced by the institution and affording it considerable deference."
Coady said the segregation violates the rights of both of the men.
He is giving the jail just two weeks to come up with a solution. If it fails, he said the two men would be brought into court for a Criminal Code review of their detention.
In a statement to CBC News on Friday, a spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Department of Justice said corrective action was being taken.
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