Death, SWAT and Smokes: A Quick Trip Around the BOP – Update for June 23, 2020 | Legal Information Services Associates LLC

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

NEWS FROM AROUND THE BOP

Deadly Business: The Dept. of Justice last week set new dates to begin executing federal death-row inmates following a months-long legal battle over the plan to resume executions, which have been on hold since 2003 .

Attorney General William Barr directed the BOP to schedule the executions, beginning in mid-July at USP Terre Haute, of four inmates convicted of killing children. Three of the men had been scheduled to die last year, when Barr ended an informal moratorium on capital punishment.

Congress Queries BOP: House of Representatives Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) last week asked the BOP for details about whether agency officers who helped police the Washington, DC, protest have been quarantined or tested for COVID-19 before returning to work.

Thompson, who joined with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Illinois), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), noted that some BOP officials deployed to the protest — part of a display of force demanded by President Trump — came from FCI Petersburg, in Hopewell, Virginia (site of a significant coronavirus outbreak), yet were seen without wearing masks.

IG Out of SORTS with BOP: The DOJ Inspector General last week issued a report last week recommending that BOP Special Operations Response Teams (SORT) be suspended until comprehensive guidelines are developed.

BOP institutions maintain their own SORTs. A typical Special Operations and Response Teams has 15 members, including an emergency medical treatment specialist, a firearms instructor, a rappel master, a security/locking systems expert, a blueprint expert, and several firearms and tactical planning/procedures experts. As of 2013, the Bureau maintained 44 SORTs involving more than 700 BOP staff.

The DOJ Inspector General wrote, “SORT members deployed a distraction device munition in a confined space, which was not authorized for use under BOP policy; SORT members deployed real OC spray rather than inert OC spray during a training exercise, allegedly without proper authorization; and SORT members used force, including firing a simunition round, against staff members who were allegedly yelling to the SORT that they were ‘out of role’ and physically vulnerable… BOP policies we reviewed did not clearly specify the types of weapons, less than lethal weapons, and munitions, if any, that are authorized for use during BOP training exercises; and did not provide safeguards to ensure that exercises are conducted safely.”

BOP CO Gets Charged: The US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced on June 10 that a former correctional officer at FCI Schuylkill was charged on June 9 with bribery and corruption. The criminal information filed by the USAO alleged that between 2011 and 2016, the CO had smuggled tobacco into FCI Schuylkill in exchange for payments by prisoners.