Victim’s rights advocate tries to intervene in lawsuit seeking prisoner release over coronavirus

An advocate for victims of violent crime wants to intervene in a lawsuit filed last week that could potentially free thousands of Illinois prisoners at risk of contracting the coronavirus behind bars.

U.S. District Judge Robert Dow is poised to rule in the next few days on a request to release some of those prisoners. But Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins is hoping to assert the rights of crime victims like herself into that process.

“Victims have a constitutional right to be notified and heard in any consideration of early release,” Bishop-Jenkins told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Bishop-Jenkins’ motion to intervene did not appear on the public docket for the lawsuit until Thursday, but a stamp on the document notes it was actually filed April 3. That’s one day after the proposed class-action lawsuit was filed by 10 Illinois prisoners.

The lawsuit seeks relief for prisoners falling into six categories. Lawyers have estimated that roughly 13,000 of them could wind up having their cases reviewed if the legal challenge is successful. The prisoners named as plaintiffs are serving sentences for crimes ranging from murder to drug offenses, records show.

Bishop-Jenkins’ sister, brother-in-law and their unborn child were murdered 30 years ago this week, on April 7, 1990. Richard Langert and his pregnant wife, Nancy, were found shot to death in their town house in Winnetka. David Biro, then a 17-year-old New Trier High School student, was arrested later that year and convicted of their murders in 1991.

Biro is still serving a life sentence, according to defense attorney Thomas Brandstrader. Though the U.S. Supreme Court once labeled mandatory life sentences “cruel and unusual” when issued to convicts who were children when they committed their crimes, a judge later found Biro’s sentence for the death of the unborn child “discretionary.”

Records show Biro is being held at the Pontiac Correctional Center. Meanwhile, Bishop-Jenkins became a high-profile advocate for violent crime victims.

Bishop-Jenkins pointed to Biro while seeking to intervene in the federal lawsuit, writing that it wasn’t clear if he had a medical condition that would lead to his release. Brandstrader told the Sun-Times he was not aware of any effort by Biro to participate in the lawsuit.

“I don’t think David believes it’d be an appropriate thing to do at this time,” Brandstrader said.

Still, Bishop-Jenkins wrote in her motion that violent crime victims “should receive timely notice of the proceedings in this case and allowed to assert their constitutional and statutory rights and to be heard.” She filed the motion without an attorney.

Speaking to the Sun-Times, Bishop-Jenkins pointed to the state constitution, which lists among crime-victim rights “the right to be notified of the conviction, the sentence, the imprisonment, and the release of the accused.”

“They have to be given an opportunity to be heard and object,” Bishop-Jenkins said.