We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SHOWING COMPASSION

Last week was a good one for compassionate release, the shorthand way of referring to “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for a sentence reduction under 18 USC 3582(c)(1).

FAMM, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers announced the launch of the “Compassionate Release Clearinghouse,” a collaborative pro bono effort among the organizations designed to match qualified prisoners with legal counsel should they need to fight a compassionate release denial or unanswered request in court.

“People who can barely make it out of their beds in the morning should not have to go into court alone against the largest law firm in the nation,” said Kevin Ring, president of FAMM. “Congress was clear that it wanted fundamental changes in compassionate release, yet we’ve seen prosecutors continue to fight requests from clearly deserving people, including individuals with terminal illnesses.”

The Clearinghouse will recruit, train, and provide resources to participating lawyers. It has already matched pro bono attorneys with prisoners in more than 70 cases. The Clearinghouse is actively recruiting additional attorneys and law firms to join in the effort.

Regular readers know that I have been calling the First Step Act’s changes to 3582(c)(1) a ‘killer’ provision, because while Congress may have been focused on getting terminally ill inmates home, it wrote the amendment much more broadly than that. The momentum to use the sentence reduction subsection to its full potential is increasing.

Georgetown law professor Shon Hopwood last week published an article at Prison Professors arguing that “there is a viable argument for why federal district court judges can use the compassionate release statute, as amended by the First Step Act, as a second look provision to reduce a sentence for people in federal prison if “extraordinary and compelling reasons” are present.” Shon has written a law review article and a sample brief he will be using to challenge a 213-year federal sentence consisting of stacked 18 US 924 convictions. Both discuss the reasons “why federal judges can and should give sentence reductions in cases where people in federal prison have a demonstrated record of rehabilitation in addition to compelling reasons why they were sentenced too harshly.”

NACDL, FAMM, Washington Lawyers Committee, NACDL Launch Compassionate Release Clearinghouse (June 19)

Prison Professors, A Second Look at a Second Chance: Seeking a Sentence Reduction under the Compassionate Release Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), as Amended by the First Step Act (June 18)

– Thomas L. Root