You Leave When I Say You Can Leave – Update for March 12, 2019

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

WHO SAID YOU COULD GO HOME?

Winning immediate release doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere. That was Darren Golson’s experience a week or so ago.

noleave190312His judge granted Darren’s retroactive Fair Sentencing Act motion and ordered his release on Feb. 25. But when he showed the halfway house the judge’s order, it called some unnamed Bureau of Prisons employee, who ordered them to refuse to let Darren leave.

Darren whipped up a quick emergency motion, essentially asking his judge to figuratively plant his size 12 in the halfway house’s butt. The irate judge got on the phone, asking the halfway house who there would accept service of the “show cause” order the court was fixing to issue.

The answer was that no one wanted to see such an order. The halfway house hustled Darren out the door at 3:57 pm on the 27th, only two days late.

Motion, US v Golson, Case No. 2:01-cr-47 (E.D.Va. Feb. 27, 2019)
Order, US v Golson, Case No. 2:01-cr-47 (E.D.Va. Feb. 28, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root

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