For 15 months, Gregory Sharps has been incarcerated at the D.C. Jail, waiting for a judge to set a date for his trial.

Sharps was arrested on October 5, 2019 for allegedly robbing an unlicensed marijuana dispensary eight months earlier on H Street in Northeast. When he was taken to jail, no one had heard of the coronavirus. Today, COVID-19 outbreaks at D.C. correctional facilities have killed an inmate and a corrections officer, and sickened dozens of other incarcerated residents.

In March, Sharps was indicted on 45 counts. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, and later requested a trial by jury. But two weeks later, as COVID-19 was spreading in the region, the D.C. Superior Court halted all jury trials that weren’t already in process.

Since then, Sharps, who has a rare congenital heart disease, has been waiting behind bars indefinitely with no trial date in sight. He has filed three motions for release, and even wrote a letter to D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Okun asking to be released on house arrest due to his heart condition.

“I don’t want to die in here, Mr. Okun,” he wrote in June. “I’d like to get married to my fiancé and be there for my boy –– he’s my only son, sir.”

But the court has repeatedly denied his release, citing a long indictment that includes assault with a dangerous weapon, kidnapping while armed, and armed robbery. Now, his lawyers are appealing the decision in the D.C. Court of Appeals, arguing that his indefinite detention before trial is unconstitutional and puts his health at risk.

Sharps is just one of many inmates who, despite not being convicted of a crime, are being indefinitely held at the D.C. Jail while jury trials are on pause. As of mid-December, 430 jury trials had been delayed at the D.C. Superior Court due to the pandemic, including 139 cases that involve defendants awaiting trial at the jail.

According to statistics published by the D.C. Department of Corrections in October, pretrial felons who are men spend an average of 10-11 months in DOC custody, while women average between eight and nine months. But experts say the pandemic has created such a backlog at the D.C. Superior Court that many defendants could be held for years before their trials begin.

The pileup has led to an increase of the jail’s population, alarming experts who say overcrowding puts inmates at risk of contracting the coronavirus. In June, after a severe coronavirus outbreak at the jail, a federal court ordered the D.C. Department of Corrections to implement sweeping health reforms and to come up with a detailed plan to reduce the jail’s population.

But the plan to reduce the jail’s population hasn’t materialized, and advocates say DOC has failed to implement health reforms. “[DOC] are clearly still struggling to comply not only with the Court’s order, but with basic precautions,” says a legal brief filed last month by the ACLU and the Public Defender Service.

Between mid-June and November, the D.C. Jail’s population grew by 19% –– from 1,261 to 1,487 residents, according to a December report by court-appointed inspectors. The increase was largely due to more inmates being held on pretrial felony charges, the report found.

The population growth at the jail has coincided with a coronavirus uptick. Cases had stabilized at DOC following an outbreak in the spring, but they started surging again in the fall. As of Friday, 50 staffers and 10 inmates at the jail had tested positive for COVID-19 since November 1, bringing the cumulative number of infections to 379 since March, according to data from Open Data DC.

With strict coronavirus protocols in place at the jail, lawyers have had a difficult time getting in touch with their clients, who are confined to their cells for 23 hours a day. Inmates are released only to shower, make phone calls, or watch television. Those confined to segregation units are locked down for 24 hours a day.

In-person visits have been cancelled until further notice. “Before the pandemic, I could just visit a client pretty much anytime –– I’d just go to the jail and request a meeting,” says Greg Lipper, a criminal defense attorney.

Attorneys now get a timeframe to receive a video call from their client, which must be scheduled at least one day in advance. “The call could come at any point during the day,” Lipper says. “You might be on the phone with someone else, you might be having a sandwich.”

In an appeal of the D.C. Superior Court’s decision to deny Sharps’ release, his attorneys argue that his indefinite incarceration violates his rights to a speedy trial and puts him at unnecessary risk of contracting the virus.

Carrie Weletz, a lawyer for Sharps, says courts have many options to safely release inmates whose trials have been delayed, from home confinement to strict supervision programs and GPS monitoring devices. “I do believe that there are a lot of individuals who can be released with conditions –– you have lots of tools in the toolbox for relief,” she tells DCist. “There has to be some other way.”

Research shows that pretrial violence is rare and difficult to predict. According to data from the Public Safety Assessment, a tool that helps judges assess release risks, 92 percent of inmates who are flagged as high-risk do not commit a violent crime when released before trial.

Weletz says speedy trial rights are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and codified by D.C. law. “These people shouldn’t just be detained on a probable cause finding for an indefinite amount of time, not knowing when the trial is going to take place,” she says.

As of early December, a total of 995 motions for release had been filed in felony cases at the D.C. Superior Court since mid-March, of which 570 were denied and 162 were still pending. Only 256 release motions –– roughly 26% –– were granted during that period.

According to the D.C. Code, individuals should be tried within 100 days of being detained. Beyond that timeframe, inmates should be released until trial hearings begin, the code says.

But a series of emergency orders has allowed judges at the D.C. Superior Court to hit pause on those time limits during the pandemic.

Weletz argues the court doesn’t have the authority to suspend trial deadlines. “These safeguards and time limits are not mere deadlines; they are carefully crafted and constitutionally necessary measures designed to protect an individual’s procedural and substantive due process rights,” she wrote in a November 12 filing.

D.C.’s Public Defender Service has also weighed in on the case, filing an amicus brief that argues any inmate’s pretrial detention past the statutory 100-day limit is illegal and violates due process.

A decision on Sharps’ case could come any day now, Weletz says. If the D.C. Court of Appeals rules in favor of his release, it could set a legal precedent for releasing other inmates whose trials have been delayed during the pandemic. “The government might not want to take all of these cases all the way through oral argument, like we did, if the Court has set some sort of precedent that should be followed,” says Weletz.

The D.C. Superior Court hopes to resume jury trials in the spring, a spokesperson told DCist. A 60-day notice will be issued within the next two months, and the court will prioritize cases of defendants who have been detained before trial for the longest period of time, the spokesperson said.

Renee Hutchins, dean of the University of the District of Columbia’s School of Law, says delaying trials can have serious consequences for defendants. The stress of a pending criminal verdict takes a huge toll on people’s mental health. Even for those lucky enough to be released before trial, home confinement can affect someone’s ability to work and disrupt their family life. “There is a saying in the criminal justice space that the process is the punishment,” she says.

Additionally, the need to retain a lawyer for an extended period of time can create a huge financial burden. “Depending upon the fee structure that you’ve negotiated with counsel, every single additional filing might cost you additional money,” Hutchins says.

Even when there’s no risk of contracting a potentially deadly virus, prolonged incarceration before trial can pressure defendants to plead guilty, Hutchins says. “[COVID-19] just amplified that, but it’s now new,” she says. A 2019 study published by the Criminal Justice Policy Review found that pretrial detainees plead guilty nearly three times faster than released defendants.

Hutchins says there’s no easy solution to address trial delays during the pandemic. “It’s a complicated problem to fix,” she says.

Still, she says it’s important to keep in mind that detained individuals aren’t just statistics –- they’re part of the public. “They can’t be lost in the story,” she says. “The fact that they have been charged with an offense does not strip them of their humanity, and should not strip them of their dignity and their right to navigate this really scary, horrible pandemic in a way that is safe.”