NEW YORK — As Rikers Island continues to be in turmoil, lawyers are preparing to ask a federal judge to consider emergency relief to alleviate conditions on the island. Emergency relief could include ordering people released from the city’s troubled jail complex.

The push comes from plaintiffs in what’s known as the Nunez settlement, which led to a landmark consent decree and the installation of a federal monitor for Rikers.

The request comes a day after Isaabdul Karim, a Rikers Island detainee, died while in custody, marking the 11^th death on the island so far this year.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Laura Swain, lawyers for the Legal Aid Society argue people going into the jails and those currently in custody need to be protected from “extraordinary harm” citing the collapse of basic operations in the city jails over the past few months. 

The death of Karim is under investigation by the city’s Chief Medical Examiner, but lawyers for Karim say he suffered from underlying medical conditions, required the use of a wheelchair and was denied medical attention while in custody. Karim had also spent 10 days in a crowded intake cell where his lawyers say he contracted COVID-19.

Karim was being held on Rikers Island for a technical violation of his parole, failing to make an office check in and using marijuana. Under the new Less is More Act, which Governor Kathy Hochul signed last week, people like Karim would have been considered for release as long as they had served up to 30 days of their time. By the time Hochul signed the new law, Karim had only been on the island for 29 days. On Sunday, the day which Karim was pronounced dead after a medical emergency was reported it marked his 32nd day in jail.

“It is clear that our clients are in danger every moment that they are in DOC custody, and we are using every tool we have to address the harms they are facing,” Tina Luongo, Attorney in Charge of the Criminal Defense Practice at Legal Aid said in a statement. “We must decarcerate now, and we must do everything we can to address the risks to those who remain behind jail walls."

The lawyers are requesting an emergency conference in order to file a motion seeking emergency relief for thousands of detainees on Rikers. In their letter, lawyers for Legal Aid argue that court-ordered releases from city jails may be necessary. 

The group cited recent testimony by administration officials delivered before a City Council hearing last week as evidence that the city cannot safely manage the jail. The lawyers also cited accounts from elected officials who recently toured Rikers and observed people “confined in spaces covered in excrement, garbage, cockroaches, and rotting food.”

The Nunez settlement resulted from a 2012 lawsuit in which 11 current and former inmates accused the Department of Correction of tolerating inmate beatings by guards that resulted in serious injuries and millions of dollars in legal settlements paid by the city. The city settled in 2015 and agreed to a host of reforms as part of the deal, including the appointment of a federal monitor, a new use of force policy and the installation of cameras at the jail complex.

Since then the federal monitor has issued several reports detailing a culture of mismanagement at the jail that has resulted in harm to detainees.