As you know, on September 30, 2024, the BOP changed its email system to make mass emailing of this newsletter impossible.
This is a copy of the newsletter for December 30, 2024. I have reformatted it to eliminate graphics so everything printed in black will fit into a Corrlinks email (if you are providing it to an inmate).
LISA Newsletter for December 30, 2024 – A Good Day at the ‘Range’
LISA publishes a free newsletter sent to inmate subscribers in the Federal system. Due to BOP Corrlinks limitations, the newsletter must be sent in small batches throughout the week.
Edited by Thomas L Root, MA JD
Vol 10, No 52
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Range Redux
Biden Cleans Out Death Row So Trump Can’t
BOP’S Bumpy End to 2024
Big Money
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RANGE REDUX
Only two years ago, a 3d Circuit panel of three appellate judges held that Bryan Range – a man whose rap sheet included traffic tickets, fishing without a license and a misdemeanor false statement 25 years ago to get food stamps for his hungry family – was prohibited by 18 USC 922(g)(1) from owning a hunting rifle.
Cooler heads prevailed, however, and after the Circuit granted rehearing, an en banc opinion held in essence that a prior nonviolent offense that qualified under 18 USC 922(g)(1) to prohibit someone from possessing a gun violated the 2nd Amendment.
The government sought Supreme Court review, but while the petition was pending, the Supremes handed down US v Rahimi, a case that held that temporarily disarming someone subject to a domestic protection order complied with the 2nd Amendment. SCOTUS remanded all pending 2nd Amendment challenges on its docket – including the Range decision – for reconsideration in light of Rahimi.
Since then, the 8th Circuit has redecided in US v Jackson that a convicted drug dealer can be disarmed under 18 USC 922(g)(1) consistent with the 2nd Amendment. The 6th Circuit held in US v Williams that a 922(g)(1) conviction of a felon with violent offenses in his past complied with the 2nd Amendment (leaving open the question of 922(g)(1)’s effect on people with nonviolent felonies), and – just a week ago – the 4th Circuit said that anyone with a felony conviction was outside the protection of the 2nd Amendment.
Last week, the en banc 3rd Circuit delivered for Bryan like Santa on Christmas Eve, holding that his right to own a gun remains protected by the 2nd Amendment despite his fraud conviction.
Applying NY State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen and Rahimi, the en banc Circuit held resoundingly that Bryan “remains one of ‘the people’ protected by the 2nd Amendment, and his eligibility to lawfully purchase a rifle and a shotgun is protected by his right to keep and bear arms. More than two decades after he was convicted of food-stamp fraud and completed his sentence, he sought protection from prosecution under § 922(g)(1) for any future possession of a firearm. The record contains no evidence that Range poses a physical danger to others. Because the Government has not shown that our Republic has a longstanding history and tradition of depriving people like Range of their firearms, 922(g)(1) cannot constitutionally strip him of his 2nd Amendment rights.”
The Circuit said that its decision “is a narrow one. Bryan Range challenged the constitutionality of 18 USC 922(g)(1) only as applied to him given his violation of 62 PA Stat Ann 481(a).” This suggests that those with prior convictions might have to apply piecemeal for confirmation that their 2nd Amendment rights remain intact.
Ohio State University law professor Doug Berman, writing in his Sentencing Law and Policy blog, wrote that “[b]ecause this Range ruling creates a clear circuit split on the constitutionality of 18 USC 922(g)(1) in some settings, I would expect to see an appeal to the Supreme Court by the US Dept of Justice. But maybe the new incoming [DOJ] officials might not want to test the application and reach of the 2nd Amendment in this particular ‘narrow’ case.”
Range v AG, Case No 21-2835 (3d Cir. Dec 23, 2024) 2024 USAppLEXIS 32560
Sentencing Law and Policy, En banc 3rd Circuit again finds federal felon-in-possession ban unconstitutional as applied to Bryan Range (Dec 23)
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BIDEN CLEANS OUT DEATH ROW SO TRUMP CAN’T
President Biden last week commuted 37 federal death sentences to life without parole less than a month before Donald J. Trump will return to the Oval Office with a promise to restart executions.
Only three men remain on federal death row: the man convicted of murdering 12 Jewish worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018; a white supremacist who massacred 9 black worshippers at a Charleston, SC, church in 2015; and the man behind the 2013 terrorism-related Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and injured more than a dozen others.
Biden said in a statement, “These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
Biden promised in 2020 to end the federal death penalty. Although legislation he backed failed to advance in Congress, he directed the DOJ to issue a moratorium on federal executions. Reason magazine said last week, “The issue took on life-and-death stakes after Donald Trump won reelection. The incoming Trump administration carried out 13 executions in the final six months of its first term and will almost surely lift the Biden administration’s moratorium.”
A broad collection of groups and people opposing the death penalty had called on Biden to commute the death sentences. Nevertheless, the predictable outrage began within hours of his announced commutation. The New York Post trumpeted that “Biden commutes death sentences of child killers and mass murderers 2 days before Christmas.”
Sen Tom Cotton (R-AR) called the commutation “politically convenient.,” saying on social media, “Democrats can’t even defend Biden’s outrageous decision as some kind of principled, across-the-board opposition to the death penalty since he didn’t commute the three most politically toxic cases.” House Judiciary Committee member Mike Quigley (D-IL), who was also been critical of Hunter Biden’s pardon, said, “I have real concerns overall with the death penalty, but I also have concerns with the executive branch overturning cases that have been decided by courts across the country,” the Democrat told CNN. “We have to have some autonomy there.”
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Richard Durbin (D-IL), applauded the commutation: “The President’s decision today provides accountability with a term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and ensures that these individuals never again pose a threat to public safety, but without implicating the myriad issues associated with capital punishment.”
Trump issued a Christmas Day blast on social media telling the people who had their death sentences commuted to “go to hell.”
Advocates are demanding more clemency. Zoë Towns, executive director of FWD.US, called on Biden “in these final weeks of his administration [to] focus clemency on sentence commutations for people who are in prison… [A]ll of those people [getting clemency so far]… nobody actually walked home from prison, right? Nobody’s prison term was reduced in any way.”
A White House “fact sheet” promised that “[i]n the coming weeks, the President will take additional steps to provide meaningful second chances and continue to review additional pardons and commutations.”
NY Times, Biden Commutes 37 Death Sentences Ahead of Trump’s Plan to Resume Federal Executions (Dec 23)
Washington Post, Biden commutes most federal death sentences before Trump takes office (Dec 23)
White House, Statement of President Joe Biden (Dec 23)
Reason, Biden Commutes Nearly All Federal Death Penalty Sentences (Dec 23)
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BOP’S BUMPY END TO 2024
No doubt Colette Peters will be glad to see the last of 2024, even if 2025 and the advent of a Trump presidency make her continued role as Bureau of Prisons director uncertain. Just in the last few weeks:
• Death Does Not Take A Holiday: 28-year-old Keenan Byrd died on Dec 18 at FCI Bennettsville of yet-unannounced causes, 50-year-old Michael Miske died of an overdose of synthetic fentanyl at FDC Honolulu on Dec 1, Juan Parrado died last Thursday at FCI Thomson, and on Dec 6, 41-year-old Jonathan Strader died at FCI Lewisburg (both of undisclosed causes).
NTD Television reported that an “Associated Press investigation uncovered deep-seated problems within the BOP, including rampant sexual abuse, staff criminal conduct, escapes, chronic violence, and severe staffing shortages, which have slowed staff responses to emergencies, including inmate assaults and suicides;”
• The Rap Sheet: Former BOP lieutenant Daniel Mitchell pled guilty last week in federal court to conspiracy to violate an inmate’s civil rights by getting another officer to assault a SHU inmate for exposing himself in front of a female BOP officer. The offense carries a 10-year statutory maximum sentence.
Meanwhile, the 9th Circuit last week upheld an 18 USC 922(g)(8) conviction of an FDC Seatac CO who carried a gun for his private security gig after a domestic protection order was entered against him.
Finally, former BOP Lt Shronda Covington was found guilty on Dec 21 of violating an FCI Petersburg inmate’s civil rights by showing deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. Covington and RN Tonya Farley were both convicted of lying to federal agents about the inmate’s death. Another BOP Lt, Michael Anderson, previously pled guilty to the same death and has been sentenced to 36 months.
• Union Unrest: I previously reported that the AFGE Council of Prison Locals filed an unfair labor practice claim against the BOP for violating its labor-management agreement with the union by closing FCI Morgantown. It now appears that the ULP claim covers 401 employees at all seven camps being closed, Some employees will be reassigned to other facilities, while others face being let go. The ULP claims the BOP “is obligated under the law to notify and bargain with the union on these changes to working conditions and employment” and asks the Federal Labor Relations Authority to order the BOP to halt the closure and to bargain with the union.
Meanwhile, workers at the FPC Duluth are mobilizing to prevent the standalone camp’s shutdown. BOP employee and union rep Tanya Gajeski has been garnering support from local congressional leaders like Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who said she has spoken to BOP Director Peters about her opposition to the closure, and Rep Pete Stauber (R-MN), who questioned the reasoning behind the closure in correspondence to Peters.
WBTW, 28-year-old inmate dies at Bennettsville prison (Dec 20)
NTD Television Network, Hawaii Crime Boss Dies of Opioid Overdose in Federal Custody (Dec 26)
WQAD, Male inmate dies at FCI Thomson; FBI notified (Dec 27)
Sunbury Daily Item, Lewisburg federal inmate dies (Dec 7)
US v Shuemake, Case No 22-30210, 2024 USApp LEXIS 32685 (9th Cir. Dec 26, 2024)
WBTW, Federal prison lieutenant could get 10 years for role in North Carolina inmate’s assault (Dec 28)
US Atty EDVA, Former Federal BOP employees convicted of charges arising from their failure to obtain medical care for an inmate who later died from his injuries (Dec 24)
Press Release, AFGE Files Unfair Labor Practice Against BOP for Displacing 400 Workers Without Bargaining with Union (Dec 23)
St Paul Pioneer Press, Duluth Federal Prison Camp workers seek allies in push to save jobs, facility (Dec 24)
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BIG MONEY
Remember two years ago, when BOP issued a notice of proposed rulemaking in response to the 20 inmates out of 150,000 plus who had big money in their commissary accounts? The BOP proposed having the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program take 75 pct of anything inmates received from outside sources (such as family) toward restitution, fines, child support, tax and other obligations.
Last week, the BOP showed a little Christmas spirit, issuing a Supplemental NPRM asking for comment on a softer standard. The agency now proposes a rule that would take none of your outside money if your commissary account stays under $250; 25 pct if your account balance is $250 but under $1,000; 35 pct for accounts from $1,000 but under $2,500; 55 pct from $2,500 but under $5,000; and 100 pct of outside money when your balance is over $5,000.
FRP refusal will deny you FSA credits and RDAP credit as well as current limitations listed in 28 CFR 545.11.
You may file written comments on the proposed rule before Feb 18, 2025.
Federal Register, Inmate Financial Responsibility Program: Procedures (Dec 17)
Forbes, New Rules on Federal Inmate Financial Responsibility Program (Dec 21)
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