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

NO FAIR CHANCE FOR FAIR CHANCE ACT

Those of us who have recently had the Grim Reaper knock on the door – or at least, received notice of our mortality in the form of a Medicare card arriving in the mail – remember Buffalo Springfield, a drug-addled band named for an obscure brand of steamroller. The band’s only real chart-topper was a 1967 protest song, “For What It’s Worth.” As I recall it (to the extent I recall anything at all from the ’60s), the song began, “Somethin’s happening’ here…”

Inmate readers ask regularly me what legislation or Sentencing Guidelines changes are in the Washington, D.C., pipeline to benefit people with gun cases or career offenders or white-collar defendants or people with sex cases… You name the offense, and you can be sure there are some hopefuls out there in the Bureau of Prisons population.

My answer to them is short and painful: Nothin’s happening’ here. Or there. Or anywhere. No Guidelines amendments on November 1st this year, no legislation with a ghost of a chance of passage in this two-year session of Congress. Nothin’.

The Democrats don’t want to pass anything the Republicans want, the Republicans don’t want to pass anything the Dems want. With the 2020 election only 14 months away, nothing is going to get done.

And as far as the Guidelines go, nothing will come out of the Sentencing Commission until the President decides to use his marker pen to write down the names of appointees instead of phantom hurricane paths. The Sentencing Commission has needed at least two more members, enough to make a quorum, since last December. Without the quorum, the USSC has been unable to vote on anything for the past nine months, including amendments to the Guidelines.

And there are no nominations on the horizon.

The only legislation even getting media interest is the Fair Chance Act, which curiously enough was introduced by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) but has broad conservative support (including that of the President, who recently has engaged in a Twitter war with Cummings). Fair Chance would prevent the federal government and federal contractors from conducting a criminal background check or otherwise inquiring about an applicant’s criminal record until such time as a conditional job offer is extended. Once an offer is made, the employer can then conduct the criminal background check as needed.

No question the legislation is needed. A 2009 study by Princeton and Harvard researchers indicated that those who indicate they have a criminal record are 50% less likely to receive a callback than those who do not check the box.

But needed or not, Fair Chance – like any other criminal justice reform legislation – has no fair chance until 2021.

The Daily Signal, A Bill to Give Former Inmates a Second Chance (Aug. 26)

– Thomas L. Root