Public defenders in the nation’s capital are asking a judge in a federal lawsuit to block the U.S. Parole Commission from arresting D.C. residents and to release at least three people currently in jail on its orders, arguing that the federal body no longer has authority to jail people because, as of Wednesday, it does not legally exist.

The U.S. Parole Commission — a division of the Justice Department that primarily supervises several thousand D.C. residents who were released from prison but still serving their sentence — didn’t just have a lapse in funding when the government shut down this week. The agency was also set to sunset on Sept. 30, unless Congress passed legislation that extended it.

In a lawsuit filed in D.C.’s U.S. District Court last week, the D.C. Public Defender Service argues that because Congress instead took no action, the commission expired and now has no power. The public defenders asked a judge to block the parole commission from operating and to order the release of three D.C. residents recently sent to D.C. jail by the commission on alleged violations of their supervision.

“All three of these claims ask the same question: Does the Commission have congressional authorization to issue arrest warrants, detain, and sentence individuals to further incarceration? The answer is no, because, effective last night, Congress has abolished the Parole Commission,” public defenders wrote in their motion for a temporary restraining order seeking to stop the commission’s operations. They are seeking class-action status on their lawsuit so that it would apply to a broader number of people who’ve been jailed.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes declined to grant the temporary restraining order, saying the question of whether the U.S. Parole Commission legally exists needs deeper review. She stopped short of blocking the commission from continuing to arrest people — but suggested that the commission should avoid sending a large amount of people to jail while its legal authority is in question.

“Until we get this settled, they might not want to be issuing arrest warrants left and right,” Reyes told the attorney representing the commission, noting that might require her to move more quickly in the case. “I would counsel your client that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, and if it’s not absolutely necessary to act … I think that would be better with respect to arrest warrants.”

Archived at https://archive.is/vHE1y