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

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: “NO”

I had a reader ask me last week to yet again address the inmate rumor that Congress or the Sentencing Commission or the BOP or Time Reduction Fairy was putting together some kind of deal to give federal prisoners time off because of how miserable doing time was during COVID.

Our sponsor this week is Dr. No. He wants to remind people that no, no, no, there is NO plan in Congress, NO bill in Congress, NO idea being knocked around in Congress, and NO drug-addled delusion among legislators that federal inmates will get any time cut because they were serving a sentence during COVID.

I’ve been here before. The 65% law, a year off for COVID, letting nonviolent people all do their time at home… I have taken swings at federal sentencing myths for a long time, it seems, and all for naught.

An across-the-board reduction in sentences could only come from Congress or the Time Reduction Fairy. Congress has no plans to do it. The Sentencing Commission has no proposal to do such a thing. The BOP is incapable of doing it. President Biden has the power to commute sentences, but then he has the power to pardon every federal prisoner with a stroke of his pen. His commutation record makes President Trump look profligate.

That leaves the Time Reduction Fairy. She would have such plans, if she were real.  But sadly, there’s no such thing as the Time Reduction Fairy.

– Thomas L. Root