OHIO (NYTIMES) - As cases of coronavirus infections rise in Ohio, some judges have attached unusual conditions for those released on probation: Get a Covid-19 vaccine or face being sent to prison.

       On Aug 4, Judge Christopher A Wagner of the Court of Common Pleas in Hamilton County told Brandon Rutherford, who was convicted on drug offences, that as part of his release on "community control", or probation, he must receive the vaccination within 60 days.

       "I'm just a judge, not a doctor, but I think the vaccine's a lot safer than fentanyl, which is what you had in your pocket," the judge told Rutherford, 21, according to a transcript provided by the judge's office Monday (Aug 10).

       "I'm going to order you, within the next two months, to get a vaccine and show that to the probation office," the judge said. "You violate, you could go to prison."

       On June 22, another Court of Common Pleas judge, Richard A. Frye in Franklin County, gave Sylvaun Latham, who had pleaded guilty to drugs and firearms offences, up to 30 days to receive the vaccination, according to court records.

       If Latham violated that condition and others, he could go to prison for 36 months. Latham agreed to be vaccinated, the records show.

       The sentences were a unique breakthrough in the public health debate taking place in the United States about how civil liberties intersect with mask and vaccination mandates.

       The judges' decisions go to the heart of how personal freedoms are being examined through the lens of public health in a pandemic. The deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio David J. Carey said he saw no "clear cut" violation of civil rights.

       "It is a potentially murky area," he said. "There is certainly a legitimate concern around ordering someone to do something that pertains to their bodily autonomy. They need to have a compelling reason to have to do so."

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