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Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies… – Update for March 25, 2025

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

OF TIMBITS AND PILES OF CASH

The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion last Friday in favor of Patrick Daley Thompson, scion of a Chicago political family (yes, that “Daley” family) turned businessman. Pat took a $110,000 loan – and then two more for a total of three loans worth $219,000 in the aggregate – from Bridgeport, Illinois’s Washington Federal Bank for Savings.

washfd250325The Washington Federal Bank for Savings had been compared to Bailey Building and Loan in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” There were a lot of parallels, right down to the bank president trying to kill himself as Christmas approached. Except he had no guardian angel to intercede. “Unlike the classic Jimmy Stewart movie,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported, “there was no storybook ending for Washington Federal or John F. Gembara, who ran the bank that his late grandfather founded in 1913.”

On December 3, 2017, Gembara hanged himself at the million-dollar Park Ridge home of a longtime friend and bankå customer who was on the hook himself for $1.8 million in loans from the beleaguered bank. Within two weeks, fed­eral bank regulators swooped in and shut down Washington Federal for “unsafe or unsound practices.” The bank was one of only eight nationwide to fail that year.

The bank’s paperwork was a mess. Loans were poorly documented or not documented at all. As the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation tried to figure out who owed what, investigators talked to Pat.

timbits250325Pat apparently figured out pretty quickly that the FDIC couldn’t document what he had borrowed. So when the bank examiners asked him about his loans, he said something to the effect that “I borrowed… $110,000.” Sort of like my wife asking me what I bought at Tim Horton’s while she shopped for shoes last weekend. (I know better than to step into a women’s shoe store). I told her, “I got a cup of coffee.” Literally true, but somewhat incomplete: I failed to mention the dozen Timbits I also bought and washed down with the java.

Pat’s statement was literally true: he had in fact taken out a loan for $110,000 just as he said. But he failed to mention subsequent loans for another $109,000, obviously hoping that – like the empty Timbits box – it would just disappear into the refuse can and no one would be the wiser.

The FDIC did end up being the wiser. Pat was convicted under 18 USC § 1014 for making false statements to the agency. At trial, he argued that his statement wasn’t false, just misleading. My wife wouldn’t forgive me for my failure to mention the Timbits, and neither the district court nor the 7th Circuit forgave Pat. In their view, the 18 USC § 1014 prohibition against false statements extended to misleading ones as well.

pinnoc160523SCOTUS disagreed. In a unanimous opinion, it held that “false” means “false,” not “misleading.” The Court ruled, “In casual conversation, people use many overlapping words to describe shady statements: false, misleading, dishonest, deceptive, literally true, and more. Only one of those words appears in the statute. Section 1014 does not criminalize statements that are misleading but true. Under the statute, it is not enough that a statement is misleading. It must be ‘false.’”

My wife should be more like Justice Amy Coney Barrett or Ketanji Jackson Brown. Then she would shrug and say what I had told her was literally true. And all would be forgiven.

Thompson v. United States, Case No. 23-1095, 2025 U.S. LEXIS 1071 (March 21, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

In the World of Violence, Nothing is Something – Update for Marcgh 24, 2025

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

DOING NOTHING IS A VIOLENT OPTION

nothing250324A conviction for using a gun in a crime of violence under 18 USC § 924(c) requires that the underlying offense being committed while using the gun be a felony involving the “use of physical force” against another person. Shooting someone obviously qualifies, but what if the underlying crime can be committed by doing nothing? Doing nothing hardly involves the “use of physical force” against another person.

Because the underlying offense must be categorically a crime of violence, you might think that if it can be committed without the “use of physical force,” it’s not violent. The Supreme Court disagreed in a 7-2 decision last Friday.

Salvatore Delligatti was convicted of a § 924(c) offense for recruiting some people to kill a suspected snitch and giving them a gun to do the job. The underlying offense was second-degree murder under state law, which could be accomplished simply by failing to act, such as letting a nursing home patient starve to death by not feeding him. Sal argued that a failure to act resulting in death meant that the second-degree statute was categorically not a crime of violence, and his § 924(c) conviction had to be thrown out.

nothinghere190906SCOTUS held that it was a crime of violence. The high court ruled that while Sal argued that an offender can commit 2nd-degree murder without being the actual cause of the victim’s death because the offender can do so through “omission of a legal duty. But the test for ‘actual causality’ is whether the victim’s death ‘would not have occurred in the absence of—that is, but for—the defendant’s conduct…’ When a child starves to death after the parents refuse to provide food, the parents’ conduct is no less a cause of death than if the parents had poisoned the child.”

What’s more, the Court ruled, an offender who causes harm by omission still makes “use” of physical force “against the person… of another.” The Justices said, “[I]t is natural to say that a person makes ‘use’ of something by deliberate inaction. A mother who purposely kills her child by declining to intervene when the child drinks bleach makes ‘use’ of the bleach’s poisonous properties.”

nothingcoming181018Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a spirited dissent, in which Justice Ketanji Jackson joined, but the decision suggests that SCOTUS is finding some practical limits to its “crime of violence” jurisprudence. After all, if doing nothing is physical force, there seem to be no practical limits on what might be a crime of violence.

Delligatti v. United States, Case No. 23-825, 2025 U.S. LEXIS 1072 (March 21, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

The Tax Man Cometh – Update for March 21, 2025

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

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY

Lonnie Hubbard is a prudent man. Although he is not yet 50, he has been saving for his golden years for a long time.

feelgood160805Unfortunately, his prudence did not extend into his professional life. Through his drug store, Rx Discount of Berea, PLLC, Lonnie provided large quantities of oxycodone to people who craved it but lacked the prescriptions that many pharmacists – at least those operating inside the law – normally require.

Lon also got into wholesaling, providing pseudoephedrine to illegal methamphetamine manufacturers.

In the vernacular, Lonnie ran a “pill mill.”

Business was good for a long time. Lonnie used over $2 million of the company’s income to pay for two homes, multiple Corvettes and a Mercedes, a boat and jet skis. At the same time, he set up an IRA to save for retirement.

Unfortunately for Lon, his fast and loose sales practices finally caused his money train to jump the tracks. After a trial, he was convicted in 2017 on 71 counts of a 73-count superseding indictment and sentenced to 360 months in prison. The court also ordered him to forfeit millions of dollars he had obtained through his illegal drug distribution.

That’s where today’s saga begins. Lonnie had $427,518 in his IRA when the government seized it to apply to his forfeiture obligation. The nature of a traditional IRA, of course, is that one is not taxed on the funds put into an IRA, instead paying taxes on the money when it is withdrawn during retirement. If money is withdrawn prior to retirement age, taxes and a penalty are paid.

taxreturn200401After Lonnie’s Uncle Sam seized the IRA, the IRS suggested that the seizure qualified as “income” for Lonnie that he should have paid taxes on from prison. The tax court agreed and ordered him to pay over $180,000 in taxes and penalties on the IRA he had lost.

This week, the 6th Circuit reversed. The Circuit ruled that because Lon had forfeited his IRA under the district court’s forfeiture order, the law made the IRS—not Lon—the owner of the IRA. The IRS thus gained “the kind of control over this account that any normal owner would possess” and did so – under the “relation back” doctrine (that holds that the government becomes the owner of forfeited funds as of the moment the defendant commits his crime – it already owned the IRA when it liquidated the funds by “[e]xercising this ownership interest.”

The 6th held:

We fail to see why Hubbard must pay taxes on the IRS’s choice to withdraw the funds given that he no longer owned or controlled the IRA. From a bird’s-eye view, Hubbard obtained no “economic gains” (that is, income) when the IRS withdrew the IRA funds. Most people would have described the earlier forfeiture of the IRA as an economic loss—not an economic gain. And the later withdrawal of funds also did not reduce any “indebtedness” that Hubbard owed the IRS. Since the forfeiture order merely transferred ownership of the IRA to the IRS, that order no more created a “debt” than did the forfeiture of Hubbard’s homes and cars. And because Hubbard did not own the IRA at the time of the withdrawal, he did not receive (and had no right to receive) its funds. Just as “the difference between what is yours and what is mine” matters for the forfeiture laws, so too it should matter for the tax laws. The IRA was not Hubbard’s. He should no more have to pay taxes on its funds than a person randomly selected from the Kentucky voter rolls.

forfeiture161215

Lonnie still has 15 years to serve on his sentence. He will walk as a free man in 2041, just in time to start collecting social security.

Hubbard v. Commissioner, Case No. 24-1450, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 6389 (6th Cir. Mar. 19, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

Judge Assails ‘Paying Rent on the Courtroom’ – Update for March 20, 2025

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

DISTRICT COURT HOLDS USSG 3E1.1 THIRD POINT UNCONSTITUTIONAL

In federal criminal justice, the “trial penalty” is the difference between the sentence criminal defendants typically receive after a plea bargain and the much higher sentence they get if they are convicted at trial.

pleadeal180104An experienced federal defense attorney I once knew called it paying rent on the courtroom. The expression is not uncommon.

That difference can be huge. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers says that “federal trial sentences are roughly three times higher than plea sentences for the same crime on average and sometimes as much as eight or ten times higher. This sentencing differential is extremely coercive. As a result, only 2-3% of federal convictions are the result of trial. The rest are plea bargains.”

NPR reports that 98% of federal criminal cases end with a plea bargain.  A 2023 American Bar Association task force that included prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys and academics cited “substantial evidence” that innocent people are coerced into guilty pleas because of the power prosecutors hold over them, including the prospect of decades-long mandatory minimum sentences.

“Trials have become rare legal artifacts in most U.S. jurisdictions, and even nonexistent in others,” the ABA Plea Bargain Task Force concluded.

plea161116Last week, Southern District of New York U.S. District Judge Jeb Rakoff (who “has been complaining, in various ways in various fora, about the severity to the federal sentencing guidelines, mandatory minimum sentencing statutes and the “trial penalty” for many years,” as Ohio State University law professor Doug Berman as aptly put it), ruled that U.S. Sentencing Guideline § 3E1.1(b) exacerbates the “trial penalty” in a way that violates the 6th Amendment.

Section 3E1.1 awards two reduction points to defendants who accept responsibility for their offenses (admit guilt with a reasonable degree of convincingness). If a defendant qualifies for the two points allowed by § 3E1.1(a), she can earn an extra one-point deduction (at the government’s sole election) under § 3E1.1(b) if she saves the government’s resources by pleading guilty early, thus avoiding the need for the U.S. Attorney to prepare for trial. In practice, however, the government has occasionally used the point to cadge defendants into surrendering assets, waiving sentencing objections, forgoing appeal, and other surrenders of rights having nothing to do with timeliness of plea.

pleadealB250320Judge Rakoff’s objection to § 3E1.1(b) is more basic than a complaint about government overreach. He argues that the third point is an unconstitutional restriction on a defendant’s 6th Amendment right to a jury trial by making the “trial penalty” even higher.  Judge Rakoff wrote:

[T]he Sentencing Guidelines effectively reinforce the trial penalty by reducing the offense level calculation by two points if the defendant “clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility” by pleading guilty, and by a third point if, in the Government’s view, the defendant has pled guilty quickly enough to permit the prosecutor to avoid preparing for trial. U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1. While the underlying theory of the two-point reduction is that a guilty plea evidences, and rewards, a defendant’s remorse, the third-point reduction is justified simply on the ground of saving prosecutorial resources…

Because of the odd way in which 3E1.1 as a whole is phrased — as a reduction in offense level for a defendant’s not exercising his constitutional right to go to trial — the remedy for the Court’s conclusion that § 3E1.1(b) is unconstitutional is to reduce the penalty thereby effectively imposed on those who choose not to avail themselves of the “benefit” of § 3E1.1(b). The Court therefore concludes that in this, and indeed every case in which a defendant chooses to go to trial but is convicted by a jury, or in which the defendant simply chooses to consider going to trial until after the Government has already started preparing for trial, the formal calculation of the offense level must be reduced by one point…

United States v. Tavberidze, Case No. 23-cr-585-03, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43082 (S.D.N.Y., March 10, 2025)

Sentencing Law and Policy, Judge Rakoff asserts USSG § 3E1.1(b) is “effectively an unconstitutional penalty” on Sixth Amendment trial rights
(March 12, 2025)

American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section, Plea Bargain Task Force Report (February 2023)

– Thomas L. Root

Senate OKs Tougher Fentanyl Enforcement – Update for March 18, 2025

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

SENATE PASSES TOUGH FENTANYL BILL

fentanyl210422The Senate last Friday passed S.331, a bill that expands the sweep of the Controlled Substances Act to include within the definition of fentanyl a wide number of analogues of the drug.

Called the HALT Fentanyl Act, the bill would permanently place all copycat versions of fentanyl — alterations of the drug that are often sold by traffickers — on Schedule 1, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s list of most dangerous drugs.

Under current law, certain drugs that are not explicitly designated as controlled substances can be subject to requirements under the CSA. However, to proceed with criminal cases, prosecutors must prove that such drugs meet specific criteria related to chemical structure and psychoactive effects. By placing all fentanyl-related substances in Schedule I, S. 331 would lower the burden of proof in certain cases by removing that requirement, thus increasing the likelihood of conviction. The move would mean an increase in criminal convictions for distributing fentanyl-related substances, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

warondrugs211028The 16 nay votes all came from Democrats. One opponent, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), said, “Some fentanyl analogues may hold promise as antidotes to opioid overdoses or other medical treatments. By permanently scheduling these substances without more robust exceptions for research, this legislation could stifle innovation in developing life-saving therapies, sacrificing scientific progress for political expediency… It also borrows a page from the War on Drugs playbook that ushered in excessive mandatory minimum sentences under the misguided notion that giving more people harsh prison sentences would somehow reduce the availability of drugs.”

The bill next heads to the House, where a similar version of the bill has already passed with significant Democratic support, showing many in the party are eager to clamp down on fentanyl distribution. House Republicans passed a similar bill in 2023 with dozens of Democrats joining in support, but it languished in the Democratic-held Senate.

The new legislation is consistent with the Dept of Justice’s new criminal charging policy, first announced on the day after President Trump was inaugurated, to emphasize gangs, immigration and fentanyl.

S.331, HALT Fentanyl Act (passed Senate March 14, 2025)

Congressional Budget Office, S.331, HALT Fentanyl Act (March 10, 2025)

PBS, Senate approves bill that would increase penalties for fentanyl traffickers (March 15, 2025)

Sentencing Substack, The Department of Justice’s New Criminal Charging Policies (February 24, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

Another Circuit Rules Against Sentencing Commission – Update for March 17, 2025

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

THINGS WE DIDN’T SEE COMING JUST GOT WORSE

After the First Step Act passed and prisoners could file their own 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(A) compassionate release motions, the 2nd and 4th Circuits led the nation in agreeing that people with overly long sentences due to stacked § 924(c) convictions (for using or carrying a gun during a drug or violent crime) could get relief.

guns200304Before First Step, someone with three § 924(c) counts would get a minimum of five years added on for the first count and stacked 25-year sentences added for each of the next two counts. If Danny Doper carried a gun while selling meth three times over a three-day period, the law required that he get a mandatory 55 years added on to whatever his drug sentence might be.

First Step corrected § 924(c) to make clear that for a second § 924(c) count to carry 25 years minimum time, the second gun offense had to be committed after a conviction on the first gun offense. If convicted after the Act’s passage, Danny would still face three § 924(c) sentences of 5 years each, but 15 years was still way less than the 55 years he faced before.

Three circuits disagreed that courts could on their own find First Step’s change in § 924(c) – which Congress did not make retroactive – as an extraordinary and compelling reason for a compassionate release. But when the Sentencing Commission amended its compassionate release policy statement to add Guideline § 1B1.13(b)(6) – in November 2023, we thought it had solved the debate by specifically providing that a non-retroactive change in the law – along with some other factors (like having served 10 years and having a grossly disparate sentence) – could be a basis for a compassionate release.

We didn’t see the government’s onslaught coming. The Dept of Justice immediately argued that the new Guideline policy statement exceeded the USSC’s authority. Only the 3rd Circuit had agreed with this position until last week, when in a 2-1 opinion, the 7th held that USSG § 1B1.13(b)(6) exceeded USSC authority by effectively making First Step’s nonretroactive change in § 924(c) retroactive.

interpretation210729“When Congress explicitly delegates to an agency the authority to interpret a statute, the agency’s interpretation supersedes the court’s unless the agency’s interpretation exceeds the scope of authority that Congress explicitly delegated,” the Circuit said. “Here, Congress explicitly delegated to the Commission authority to interpret extraordinary and compelling under § 3582(c)(1)(A)… But because the Commission exceeded the scope of its authority, we do not defer to its policy statement and instead follow our own interpretation.”

The margin of the Commission’s defeat was razor-thin. One of the three judges dissented, and another only reluctantly became part of the 2-1 majority, saying that “the doctrines of stare decisis and precedent require that I concur in the judgment and opinion of the court.”

The 7th Circuit admitted that courts of appeal were divided on the issue, saying that “[p]erhaps the Supreme Court will eventually resolve the split, but for now we will follow our precedent and join the only other court of appeals [the 3d Circuit] to so far resolve the battle of competing interpretations.”

You can bet on it.

United States v. Black, Case No. 24-1191, 2025 U.S.App. LEXIS 5634 (7th Cir. March 11, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

Judge Dredd’s An OK Guy, Mr. Defendant – Update for March 14, 2025

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

‘THE JUDGE’S BIAS DIDN’T HURT YOU’, 7TH CIRCUIT TELLS PETITIONER

You may recall U.S. District Judge Colin S. Bruce of the Central District of Illinois, who was caught by a local newspaper seven years ago holding “extensive” ex parte communications with the US Attorney’s Office about criminal cases over which he was presiding. Ol’ Colin – I don’t call him “Your Honor” for reasons that should be clear – was a former Assistant United States Attorney who couldn’t leave his old pals behind. Ultimately, he was caught talking out of school to prosecutors about cases currently before him, complaining about defense attorneys and blasting assistant U.S. attorneys when he thought they were letting defendants wriggle out their misdeeds and escape the harsh justice they deserved..

colinbruce200221When the story broke, the Chief District Judge removed Bruce from federal criminal cases for a time and the 7th Circuit Judicial Council “found no evidence that Judge Bruce’s improper communications actually affected his decision in any case but admonished Judge Bruce that his actions had breached the Code of Conduct for United States Judges.”

Forty lashes with a wet noodle for a man who should have had the decency to resign. Is this a great country or what?

Kevin Pettis, who had been sentenced in 2018 by Bruce, filed a 28 USC § 2255 motion claiming the right to be resentenced. He argued that Bruce was biased, and “even if there was no showing of actual bias, Judge Bruce had a statutory obligation to recuse under 28 USC § 455(a) because of the appearance of bias.”

Another judge besides Bruce was appointed to hear the motion but found that Kevin failed to present any evidence of actual bias or a risk of bias so high that it rose to the level of a 14th Amendment due process violation.

wetnoodle240215Last week, the 7th Circuit affirmed the denial, reminding everyone how hard it is to get a judge removed for bias. The Circuit ruled that Kevin could “only offer[] as evidence of bias Judge Bruce’s publicly disclosed ex parte communications and his preexisting relationship with members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Neither the communications nor Judge Bruce’s preexisting relationship with the U.S. Attorney’s Office rises to the level of a due process violation.”

Pettis v. United States, Case No 23-1889, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 4841 (7th Cir., March 3, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

‘What’s the Occasion?’ Is Not an Idle Question – Update for March 13, 2025

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

6TH CIRCUIT HOLDS ERLINGER ERROR IS NOT HARMLESS

errorA160425Kevin Cogdill was found guilty of an 18 USC § 922(g)(1) violation for possessing a gun after three prior drug felony offenses. The district court, over Kevin’s objection, determined that he committed his three prior drug offenses “on occasions different from one another,” subjecting him to an enhanced sentence of at least 15 years under the Armed Career Criminal Act.

Kevin appealed on the grounds that an 18 USC § 924(e) conviction – the ACCA statute – requires that a jury had to find that his priors had occurred on “occasions different from one another.” After the Supreme Court held in United States v. Erlinger that the “occasions different” standard in the statute was a jury question, Kevin’s case was remanded to the 6th Circuit.

Last week, the 6th agreed that the error was not harmless and remanded Kevin for resentencing.

The Circuit reviewed the record, finding that two of the priors related to selling — or possessing with intent to sell — methamphetamine. No one arrested Kevin between the June offense and the September offense, and he ultimately was convicted of both offenses on the same date. For all the record shows, “it is certainly possible…” that the drugs for these two offenses came from the same source. Kevin might have obtained a large quantity of methamphetamine, sold some of that stash in June, and then “was busted” for possessing with intent to sell the rest in September. Without any other information about how these crimes took place, it is reasonable to think that these crimes may have been ‘similar or intertwined’ and ‘share[d] a common scheme or purpose.’”

occasion250313The decision is noteworthy because of the expansive view of “occasions different” the court suggests. There was a time when occasions were thought to be different whenever a defendant had an opportunity to reflect on his conduct before the next drug sale or burglary. Back then, one night’s indiscretion was enough to make one an armed career criminal if caught with a gun 20 years later.

The appellate court’s holding suggests that the ACCA may become what it was intended to be, a means of immobilizing the worst of the worst rather than a bludgeon to be used on small-time dopers and footpads.

United States v. Cogdill, Case No. 22-5603, 2025 U.S.App. LEXIS 4902 (6th Cir. March 3, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

Pardon Attorney Becomes Gun Victim – Update for March 11, 2025

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

GOODBYE, LIZ… WE HARDLY KNEW YE

oyer250311Notoriously apolitical and dedicated Dept of Justice Pardon Attorney Elizabeth G. Oyer was abruptly fired and frog-marched out of the DOJ building by security last Friday morning. Her crime?  According to this morning’s New York Times, Oyer refused to recommend restoration of gun rights to actor Mel Gibson, who is disqualified from possessing a lethal weapon due to a 2011 misdemeanor conviction for battering his girlfriend.

Under 18 USC § 922(g)(8), a conviction for a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence disqualifies a person from possessing a firearm or ammunition that has traveled in interstate commerce. While it is possible for a person disqualified under § 922(g) – which lists multiple categories of people not allowed to have guns – to possess a firearm that was manufactured in the same state in which the person lives, the courts have long held that no commercial ammunition is made entirely of components produced in a single state.

In 2011, Gibson pleaded no contest in Los Angeles Superior Court to a charge of misdemeanor battery stemming from a January 2010 fight he had with Oksana Grigorieva, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his then 1-year-old daughter. Gibson was sentenced to 36 months of informal probation, community service, a year of domestic violence counseling, and $570 in fines. In an incident which must have had a fascinating backstory, prosecutors also agreed not to charge Grigorieva with extortion, citing insufficient evidence. Gibson had alleged that she tried to extort money from by leaking multiple recordings of him purportedly yelling at her.

Oyer said through a spokesperson yesterday that about two weeks ago, she was assigned to a working group to restore gun rights to people convicted of crimes. The group was headed by Paul Perkins of the deputy attorney general’s office and James McHenry, the acting attorney general, two sources familiar with the effort told NBC.

As The New York Times described it, “It was an unusual assignment for the office of the pardon attorney, which typically handles requests for clemency and tries to focus on people who cannot hire well-connected lawyers to plead their cases to the White House, where the president has vast power to grant pardons in federal cases. Mr. Trump has a history of making pardon decisions without substantial input from the pardon attorney, but in this case Justice Department leaders planned to make the decision about gun rights on their own.”

gibsongun250311NBC News reported today that the working group was “instructed to find a way to restore gun rights to entire classes of previously convicted people. Because ATF is technically prohibited from processing such requests, the plan was to give the authority to the pardon attorney and for there to be a semi-automated process. That was in stark contrast to how the pardon office normally works, which is by evaluating each application case by case and making recommendations.”

A list of about 95 people made the initial list, but that was cut to about nine. Oyer prepared a draft memorandum for the group, but after she submitted the draft, she was asked to add Gibson’s name to the list and was given a letter that Gibson’s attorney had sent asking DOJ to restore his gun rights.

She refused to do so, explaining that she lacked enough information about the 2011 conviction to make a recommendation. However, she soon got a phone call from the deputy attorney general’s office asking whether her position on Gibson was flexible. When she said it was not, NBC said, Oyer was told that “Mel Gibson is a friend of the president and that should be justification enough.”

On Friday morning, NBC said, Oyer submitted a second draft memo that summarized the information she had available on Gibson – including not just the 2011 conviction but also reports of Gibson’s 2006 drunken anti-semitic tirade to LA cops – and made no any recommendation to the attorney general

Shortly after that, she was handed her termination notice and marched out.

Oyerfiring250311“This is dangerous. This isn’t political — this is a safety issue,” Oyer told The New York Times. In a statement to NBC, Oyer described a climate of fear within the DOJ. “Unfortunately, experienced professionals throughout the Department are afraid to voice their opinions because dissent is being punished,” she was quoted as saying. “Decisions are being made based on relationships and loyalty, not based on facts or expertise or sound analysis, which is very alarming given that what is at stake is our public safety.”

The Times said that Oyer’s account of the gun debate over Gibson and others was confirmed by two other people familiar with the events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.

A Justice Department official familiar with the matter told NBC News and The Times that Oyer’s firing was not related to the Gibson case. “The Mel Gibson decision did not play a role in termination decision,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The paperwork was done before the Mel Gibson email went out.”

However, NBC reported that a second senior Justice Department official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Oyer’s ouster “is part of a very concerning set of personnel moves across the federal government and at DOJ” in which officials who might act as checks on abuses of power were being fired.

“I don’t know how much of what happened to Liz was a failure to toe the line about a specific thing,” the DOJ official is quoted as saying. “But, systematically, the political leadership of this administration is doing their best to take away the institutional guardrails.”

Oyer was appointed by President Joe Biden. She was a breath of fresh air in the Pardon Office backwater, spearheading sessions at federal prisons where she spoke to inmates about the pardon process and dismissing a stack of very old and stale clemency petitions to try to reset the process. All too often, both Biden and (in the last six weeks) Trump appeared on more than one occasion to ignore her role in the pardon process when it suited them.

As for the gun rights restoration push, NBC reported that while a system has not yet been set up to review gun rights restoration applications, “there have been talks to have the attorney general immediately begin restoring rights to a pre-set list of people in the meantime, two law enforcement officials familiar with the matter said.”

New York Times, Justice Dept. Official Says She Was Fired After Opposing Restoring Mel Gibson’s Gun Rights (March 11, 2025)

NBC News, DOJ official says she was fired after opposing the restoration of Mel Gibson’s gun rights (March 11, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

The BOP – Fearlessly Meeting the Demands of This Moment – Update for March 10, 2025

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

LOOK AT ME, I’M WONDERFUL

I reported last Friday on a federal court approval of a settlement between the Federal Bureau of Prisons and about 500 female prisoners formerly housed at the now-closed FCI Dublin.

I note that one curious requirement of the decree is that the BOP to “issue a formal, public acknowledgement to victims of staff sexual abuse at FCI Dublin.”

wonderful250310I mentioned that the “acknowledgement” came on February 26 in a post by William Lothrop, who will be one of the shortest-tenured acting BOP directors in history( he retires in three weeks). Bill, like me, is apparently a late 60s  fan of the Bonzo Dog  Band, which gave us some timely classics as “I’m the Urban Spaceman.” This much is suggested by his channeling the band’s sleeper from its Keysham album entitled “Look at Me, I’m Wonderful.“

If you didn’t know the history, you’d think Lothrop was taking the agency on a victory lap. He emoted on his own 33 years having “worked tirelessly with our correctional professionals to rehabilitate and prepare all inmates for successful reentry into our communities.”  Hard to tell that he was supposed to be apologizing to all of those women who were sexually assaulted by BOP employees while other BOP employees hid their heads in the sand.

After Lothrop “acknowledge[d] those women who were verified victims of sexual abuse while they were designated at FCI Dublin,” he proudly strutted that “there is absolutely no place for sexual abuse in this agency, and therefore, our agency maintains and reaffirms its zero-tolerance policy for employee sexual misconduct and retaliation. I have full faith that the FBOP and our team of dedicated correctional professionals will continue to meet the demands of this moment.”

The non-apology would be ennui-inducing enough if the BOP had stamped out sexual abuse as a result of the Dublin debacle. However, last week, we were reminded that the BOP is doing anything but meeting the demands of this moment or any other.

femalesexprisoner241219A former BOP corrections officer assigned to a female unit at FDC Chicago was charged in federal court with sexually assaulting four female inmates in late 2023. The same week, out at USP Thomson, a CO was indicted for allegedly having sex with two inmates between December 2023 and March 2024.

What did these people not get? Their fellow BOP officers and managers in Dublin were getting perp-walked on Bay Area television for sexually abusing inmates. You’d think that would suggest that sex with inmates was a bad idea.

And while it’s not sex, down in Florida, a former FCC Coleman has been indicted in MD Florida federal court for smuggling contraband tobacco into the prison last June in exchange for payment.

On a related note, at the end of January, the Dept of Justice shut down its National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD), a national directory former President Biden created in 2022 to track police misconduct. Last week, The Appeal reported that over half of the 5,200 lost database entries, more than 2,600, related to complaints against BOP officers. Customs and Border Patrol was in second place with 1,169 records, or about 22% of the database.

Look at you, Mr. Lothrop. Look at you, BOP. You’re wonderful. Shooby-dooby-wah.

BOP, Update Regarding Former FCI Dublin Inmates (February 26, 2025)

WTTW-TV, Ex-Correctional Officer Accused of Sexually Abusing Inmates in Chicago’s Federal Prison (March 6, 2025)

WIFR-TV, Thomson prison correctional officer accused of having sex with inmates (February 5, 2025)

Florida Politics.com, Ocala prison guard faces 15-plus years on contraband tobacco rap (March 4, 2025)

The Appeal, Trump’s Deleted Police Misconduct Database Was Full of Prison and Border Incidents (February 27, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root