"Two days before a hearing that could have set him free, the courthouse shut down. Now inmates like LaRon Warren wait, as they try to dodge coronavirus."

That is the headline in a Chicago Tribune article about juveniles sentenced to life without parole, and who now may be entitled to new hearings. Here is the gist of the article:

LaRon Warren had been serving life in prison without parole for two South Side murders as a juvenile in the 1990s, but a series of landmark court rulings left him hoping he’d win his freedom at a hearing in March.

Then the coronavirus put that dream on hold.

Now the wait is becoming more challenging as some jails and prisons have seen COVID-19 outbreaks. At the county jail where Warren is, seven prisoners who tested positive for COVID-19 died at local hospitals.

My colleague Shoba Mahadev, who has worked on these cases, is quoted in the article:

“It’s an urgent situation,” said Shobha L. Mahadev, a clinical associate professor at Northwestern University Law School’s Children and Family Justice Center.

About 70 of the roughly 100 Illinois inmates once sentenced to life without parole as juveniles have been resentenced following the state and federal court rulings, Mahadev said. Most have received shorter sentences, some have been freed, and a handful have been resentenced to life in prison again, Mahadev said.

“When we talk about prisons, we expect people to be held accountable for the crimes they commit,” Mahadev said. “None of this is supposed to be a death sentence by virtue of a horrible pandemic, and we know that prisons are uniquely susceptible to this.”

You can read the entire Tribune article here.