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

SENATE STIMULUS PROPOSAL EXCLUDES PAYMENTS TO MOST INMATES

I reported back in April that the CARES Act did not exclude inmates from collecting the $1,200 stimulus check. Since then, the IRS has tried to say otherwise, but it has met a lot of pushback.

The House and Senate are still far apart on a second stimulus bill, which everyone hoped would be in place by last Friday. One provision in the Senate version tacitly admits that nothing in the CARES Act kept inmates from collecting stimulus checks. The House version has no such limitation.

Newsweek reported last Friday that the Senate’s outline for stimulus checks, contained in the so-called HEALS Act, revises the eligibility to exclude prisoners in this round. Forbes reported that “under the Senate proposal, any decedent who died before January 1, 2020, any person in jail at the time Treasury processes the check or any individual in prison for all of 2020, may not receive a check. This language is also retroactive to the CARES Act checks.”

At this time, no one knows what provisions – the House’s or the Senate’s – will be included in the final package (or even whether there will be a final package).

Any interesting thought, however: The very fact that the Senate version specifically excludes those in jail or prison permits the reasonable inference that – contrary to what the IRS has argued – the CARES Act as written last March did not do so.

Newsweek, Should Prisoners Get Stimulus Checks? Their Innocent Families Suffer If Not (July 31)

Forbes, Senate CARES Act 2.0 Includes More Stimulus Checks, Unemployment Benefits (July 27)

Kiplinger, Second Stimulus Check Update: HEALS Act vs. CARES Act (July 29)

– Thomas L. Root