Joe Smith was arrested, processed, and arraigned in the summer of 2020. His week went from normal to something out of a Franz Kafka novel after he entered the state prison system.
It was at the height of the Covid pandemic and although Smith could make his nominal bail of $2,500 without any trouble, he was instead thrown into a medical segregation ward of the Alaska prison system, told that he may have come into contact with someone who had Covid, and thus was denied any ability to make bail.
Smith, whose name has been changed because his case is still pending, said he was in a prison cell designed for two men, but which had eight men crowded into it. They were in the same situation — medical isolation because they may have been in contact with someone who had Covid. Some had even been released by the judge on their own recognizance but were imprisoned anyway by the Department of Corrections.
Smith was held for four days, and when his personal attorney called to find out what happened to him, the prison system, run by then Commissioner Nancy Dahlstrom, said they didn’t have him and they didn’t know where he was.