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

TRUMP MAY BE MOVING TO REPOPULATE SENTENCING COMMISSION

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, a judicial-branch agency established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, § 235(b)(3), 98 Stat. 2032 (1984), is responsible for promulgating and amending the Sentencing Guidelines that have profoundly influenced virtually every federal criminal sentence for the past 30 years (and in fact were mandatory from inception until 2005).

But the Commission – which customarily amends the Guidelines annually – has been unable to issue new or amended Guidelines since the end of 2018, because the terms of three of the five USSG members expired at the end of that year. Since then, the President has made one attempt to nominate replacements to the Commission without success. He may be about to try again.

NPR reported last week that the White House has been consulting Capitol Hill and the criminal justice community about four Republican candidates for two of the slots on the Commission, three of them federal judges and the other from the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.

Republican candidates include Senior US District Judge Henry Hudson (Eastern District Virginia), a former director of the US Marshals Service known as “Hang ‘Em High Henry” for his work as a local prosecutor. Hudson has a reputation for handing out long sentences. Another is Chief Judge K. Michael Moore (Southern District Florida), also a former director of the Marshals. Eastern District of Kentucky Judge Claria Horn Boom, a favorite of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), is in the running, as is John Malcolm, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and a former AUSA. Malcolm helped then-candidate Trump put together a list of candidates in the event a Supreme Court vacancy opened up. Malcolm has reached out to allies across the political aisle to try to overhaul mandatory minimums.

One of the Commission slots is reserved for a Democrat. The President is proposing 3rd Circuit Appeals Judge L. Felipe Restrepo, a former public defender appointed to the judgeship by President Barack Obama.

NPR, Concerns Mount Over Possible Trump Picks For Influential Crime Panel (June 19)

– Thomas L. Root