Tag Archives: Durbin

Crack-Powder Equality Gains Traction in the Senate – Update for November 2, 2021

Leave a comment

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

EQUAL ACT MAY HAVE FOUND FAVORABLE WINDS IN SENATE

The EQUAL Act, S.79, which would eliminate all disparities between crack and powder cocaine (and make those changes retroactive) received a much-needed boost in the Senate last week.

crackpowder160606Last month, the House of Representatives passed the EQUAL Act (H.R. 1693) on a bipartisan vote of 361-66. But the same legislation in the Senate, S.79, has not yet even gotten a Committee hearing. In fact, Sen Charles Grassley (R-IA) – a supporter of the Act – has said he doubts he can find the votes for passage of EQUAL in the Senate.

Things may be looking up. But last Wednesday, Sen Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) became the 9th co-sponsor of S.79 (and the 5th Republican to do so). And last week, Durbin – who as chairman of the Judiciary Committee controls its docket – issued a press release urging his colleagues to support EQUAL.

Wednesday, by the way, was the 35th anniversary of the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act. The country was reeling from the tragic death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, who died of a drug overdose just days after being drafted by the Boston Celtics. Assuming that the drug that killed Bias was crack, Congress passed a law that would impose harsher penalties on crack offenses. It later became known that Len overdosed on powder cocaine, not crack, but the narrative that crack was more dangerous than powder had already found its legs. The Sentencing Commission and the Obama Administration both called for crack-powder equity, but it hasn’t yet happened.

Sen Murkowski’s support is significant. With at least six Republican votes in the bag for EQUAL (and several more quite likely), the magic number of 60 (needed to avoid a filibuster) is within reach. A Judiciary Committee hearing will make the level of support clearer.

crack211102Holly Harris, President and Executive Director of criminal justice reform group Justice Action Network, issued a statement saying, “The EQUAL Act has strong conservative support, from Senators Murkowski, Graham, Paul, Portman, and Tillis, and from more than 150 Republicans in the House. It has the backing of law enforcement, prosecutors, civil rights groups, and advocates from the far left to the far right and everywhere in between. The EQUAL Act may be Congress’s last chance to pass bipartisan legislation squarely focused on racial injustice, and it’s time for a vote in the Senate.”

A commentator in an Iowa newspaper, wrote last week that “law enforcement leaders, including US attorneys with whom I worked during the Trump Administration, as well as the National District Attorneys Association and the Major Cities Chiefs Association, all support the EQUAL Act because they believe it builds trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.”

Support like that will help swing Republican votes in the Senate toward EQUAL.

Interrogating Justice, EQUAL Act Gets Much-Needed Path Forward in Senate (October 28, 2021)

Sen Richard Durbin, Durbin: The Senate Must Follow the House’s Lead & Eliminate the Federal Crack and Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity (October 28, 2021)

The Hill, After 35 years, Congress should finally end the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine (October 27, 20231)

Justice Action Network, Marking 35th Anniversary of Infamous “War on Drugs” Bill, Sen Lisa Murkowski is First Woman in Senate to Sign Onto Equal Act (October 27, 2021)

Mason City, Iowa, Globe Gazette, Chuck Grassley is back, as is criminal justice reform (October 27, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

Biden Administration Promises a Fix for CARES Act Home Confinees – Update for November 1, 2021

Leave a comment

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

ATTORNEY GENERAL PLEDGES TO SEEK CARES ACT PATCH

return161227By now, everyone knows that a Dept. of Justice Office of Legal Counsel opinion issued in the last days of the Trump Administration ruled that the CARES Act requires that anyone the Bureau of Prisons sent to home confinement under the Act must return to prison when the COVID-19 emergency ends. A few months ago, the Biden DOJ agreed that the opinion was correct.

Since then, there has been a hue and cry from elected officials, advocates, and celebrities that no inmates on home confinement should be forced back to prison if they have complied with home confinement terms. Last Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland made the most solid commitment yet from the Biden Administration that a way out of the legal thicket will be found.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on DOJ, Garland said “it would be a terrible policy to return these people to prison after they have shown that they are able to live in home confinement without violations, and as a consequence, we are reviewing the OLC memorandum… [and] all about other authorities that Congress may have given us to permit us to keep people on home confinement.” Garland told Sen Cory Booker (D-NJ) that while he doesn’t know how long the DOJ review might take,

but we can be sure that it will be accomplished before the end of the CARES Act provision which extends until the end of the pandemic, and so, we’re not in a circumstance where anybody will be returned before we have completed that review and implemented any changes we need to make.

At the opening of the session, Committee Chairman Richard Durbin (D-IL) complained that he was “frustrated by DOJ’s handling of COVID and prison issues.” He complained to Garland that he’d written to DOJ multiple times about home confinement with no reply, and that the Department had supported only 36 of over 31,000 compassionate release requests filed with it.

hear211101We’re only a little more than nine months into the Biden Administration, but I already have this disconcerting feeling that Joe has overpromised but underperformed. We’ll see whether Garland – by all accounts a careful and thoughtful lawyer – was hinting at a significant DOJ effort to solve the CARES Act home confinement problem, or was just saying what he thought the Judiciary Committee wanted to hear.

Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Oversight Hearing on Dept of Justice (October 27, 2021)

Josh Mittman, FAMM, on Twitter (October 27, 2021)

Interrogating Justice, AG Garland Gives Hope to Those on COVID-19 Home Confinement (October 28, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

SIZZLE BUT NO STEAK YET IN WASHINGTON – UPDATE FOR AUGUST 13, 2021

Leave a comment

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

LAST WEEK IN WASHINGTON

oddcouple210219The news website Axios reported last week that Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) – the Senate’s criminal-justice reform “odd couple” – “are working to win Senate passage of a big criminal justice reform package this Congress.”

Axios cited approval of three bills by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act, the First Step Implementation Act, and the Prohibiting Use of Acquitted Conduct Act as being “three measures, Grassley told Axios, they ‘hope to package along with potentially other proposals to pass the Senate sometime this Congress’.” Durbin separately told Axios in his own statement that he’s “committed to bringing these bills to the Senate floor this Congress.”

Axios predicts the final package also may include a measure for CARES Act confinees who otherwise may be forced to return to prison, a Republican Senate staffer told Axios, as well as the EQUAL Act. One challenge will be the crime spike, Axios said, which has the potential of sapping support from senators afraid of being branded soft on crime.

I like Axios, which is a pretty even-handed service, albeit more of a news aggregator than a news reporter. (Nothing wrong with news aggregators – LISA is largely one itself). But because it’s an aggregator, I am not sure whether Axios’s report represents something new, or is just a survey of what we already know.

caresbear210104In other developments, a coalition of five civil rights groups last week urged the Dept of Justice to reconsider its position on sending back to prison thousands of federal inmates transferred to home confinement during the pandemic, offering a legal analysis they believe would justify keeping them out from behind bars.

They argued that the Trump-era legal memo that concluded BOP is required by law to revoke home confinement for those transferred during the pandemic as soon as the emergency period is over, contending the Office of Legal Counsel memo is based on a flawed interpretation of the CARES Act.

Update: Yesterday, Senators Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) wrote to President Biden, urging him to act on keeping CARES Act home confinees at home. They suggested, in part, that the Bureau of Prisons could “provide relief for certain individuals through prerelease home confinement, under 18 USC § 3624(c)(2), and the Elderly Home Detention Pilot Program, pursuant to 34 USC § 6054l(g). For those who do not qualify for those provisions, BOP can recommend, and DOJ should support, compassionate release pursuant to 18 USC 3582(c)(l)(A). Compassionate release is authorized whenever extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant a sentence reduction, and the once-in-a-century global pandemic that led to these home confinement placements certainly constitutes such an extraordinary and compelling circumstance.”

So far, the President has resisted by inaction such calls to address the looming home confinement crisis.

Axios, Senate plans barrage on crime (August 1, 2021)

The Hill, Civil rights groups offer DOJ legal strategy on keeping inmates home after pandemic (August 4, 2021)

Letter to Dawn E. Johnsen, Acting Asst Attorney General (August 4, 2021)

The Hill, Top Senate Democrats urge Biden to take immediate action on home confinement program (August 12, 2021)

Letter to President Biden from Sens. Durbin and Booker (August 12, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

Senate Judiciary Committee Takes a Crack at Crack Disparity – Update for June 24, 2021

Leave a comment

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

COMMITTEE HEARING BRINGS HOPE TO PRISONERS WITH CRACK SENTENCES

The big news this week was the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Tuesday lovefest on scrapping the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

crackpowder160606The Committee conducted a hearing on S.79, The EQUAL Act (an acronym for “Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law”). The Act, sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), would correct mandatory minimum sentences in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) so that a like amount of cocaine base (“crack”) and cocaine hydrochloride (“powder”) would dictate a like minimum sentence.

A brief history lesson: About 35 years ago, a senator from Delaware by the name of Joe Biden co-sponsored the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. That law imposed mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders and created a 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. This meant that the poor mutt caught with five grams of crack would get the same mandatory five-year minimum sentence that a dealer walking around with over a pound of cocaine powder would face. This, of course, was because that crack turned every user into a superhuman killer, all crack dealers carried assault rifles and multiple handguns, and the merest sniff of a rock of cocaine base cocaine would turn a nun into a crack whore for life.

None of that is true, of course, but that deterred Congress not in the least. What was true was that crack was much cheaper than powder, and the drug thus became the abuse-of-choice in poorer and minority communities. As a result, the much harsher crack cocaine penalties fell on minority defendants at a rate disproportional to their representation in the general population.

In later years, under pressure from criminal justice advocates who cited the wide racial disparities and massive sentences that resulted, Presidential Candidate Biden reversed his stance. Indeed, part of his 2020 campaign platform included ending the disparity.

sessions170811Congress got there first. In 2010, it passed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the crack-powder disparity from 100:1 to 18:1. The original legislation as passed by the House eliminated the disparity altogether, but – as Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) confirmed during last Tuesday’s hearing – a compromise at 18:1 had to be reached in the Senate to mollify the Dinosaur Caucus, led by then-Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-Alabama). At the same time, the legislation was changed at Sen. Sessions’ gentle urging to eliminate retroactivity.

Retroactivity was granted retroactively in Section 404 of the First Step Act, letting people who had been sentenced under the harsh 100:1 sentencing minimums get relief.

Tuesday, the witnesses and members of the Committee are almost uniformly in favor of finally adopting the 1:1 ratio. I say “almost,” because one witness – Steve Wasserman, an assistant US attorney and vice president for defendant oppression at the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys (actually, “vice president for policy”, which appears to be the same thing) – argued that because crack defendants tend to have more extensive criminal histories and to carry guns, the ratio should not be changed. Chairman Durbin’s rejoinder to Mr. Wasserman was, “The science is not with you.”

cotton171204On the Committee, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Mongol Empire)* argued that the ratio should be made 1:1, but to achieve that, powder sentences should be increased to match crack offenses. In other words, his solution is 18:18. To say this was the minority view on the committee would be to give Sen. Cotton’s creative if Draconian solution too much credit.

Most notable was testimony given by Regina LaBelle, acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In what was clearly a position approved in the Oval Office, she said that the Biden administration “strongly supports” eliminating the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine.

“The current disparity is not based on evidence yet has caused significant harm for decades, particularly to individuals, families, and communities of color,” LaBelle said. “The continuation of this sentencing disparity is a significant injustice in our legal system, and it is past time for it to end.”

So what would be the practical effect of such a change? When the Fair Sentencing Act passed, the U.S. Sentencing Commission responded by reducing sentencing ranges across the board for crack offenses, so that a five-year mandatory sentence for a defendant without a prior criminal history possessing 28 grams of crack equaled what the Guidelines said his sentence should be. If the ratio falls to 1:1, and if the Sentencing Commission makes the same adjustments, a hypothetical defendant with no prior record (and no sentencing enhancements) would see the following sentencing range adjustments:

chart210624

These are fairly significant. Of course, there is no assurance that the powder ranges would not be adjusted upward a bit (although that is very unlikely), and the Table above does not consider the effects of Guidelines enhancements or more serious Criminal History Categories. But any way you slice it, the sentencing range changes will be substantial.

slip210624There are many ways for this to slip ‘twixt cup and lip. The EQUAL Act could go nowhere, especially if the new crime wave sweeping America makes reform politically unpalatable. It could be amended. The Sentencing Commission is still out of commission without a quorum, and Biden has not yet appointed anyone new. The Commission, if it is functioning, may not make changes under The EQUAL Act retroactive (although that is unlikely, too). And if it is retroactive, defendants will have to apply to their sentencing judges under 18 USC § 3582(c)(2), and the judges could turn them down.

Nevertheless, The EQUAL Act seems to have bipartisan support (Tom Cotton notwithstanding), and the winds – for now at least – are favorable.

—————-

* Sen. Cotton is really from Arkansas, and I mean no disrespect to the people of that great state. I would say that Sen. Cotton – aptly described by one writer as a “bobble-throated slapstick from the state of Arkansas” – has done all the disrespecting of his constituents any group of citizens should have to endure.

—————-

S.79, The EQUAL Act

Senate Judiciary Committee, Examining Federal Sentencing for Crack and Powder Cocaine (June 22, 2021)

Reason, Biden Administration Endorses Legislation to End Crack Cocaine Sentencing Disparity (June 22, 2021)

Washington Post, Biden administration endorses bill to end disparity in drug sentencing between crack and powder cocaine (June 22, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

Ted Fumes, Committee Votes, Prisoners Hope – Update for June 11, 2021

Leave a comment

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

RETROACTIVE FIRST STEP CLOSER TO REALITY

The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday approved sending the First Step Implementation Act (S.1014) to the full Senate by a 13-9 vote.

retro160110The FSIA extends retroactive treatment to changes in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) gun charges and 21 USC 841(b)(1) drug penalties made by the First Step Act in 2018. As well, the legislation extends a more lenient definition of prior drug offenses to the lower level penalties of 21 USC § 841(b)(1)(C), (D), and (E).

Additionally, FSIA changes application of the drug offense safety valve (18 USC 3553[f]) to let judges apply safety valve sentences where the court finds that a defendant’s criminal history score overstates the seriousness of a criminal past. The bill also includes extensive changes in the review of juvenile sentences and expungement of records.

A charge of using or carrying a gun during a drug trafficking crime (18 USC § 924(c)) carried a mandatory consecutive sentence of at least five years. If the offense was the second or a successive § 924(c) offense, the minimum sentence was 25 years. The government often would charge multiple § 924(c) counts in a single indictment. So if a defendant carried a gun while selling drugs on Monday, the sentence would be perhaps 36 months for selling the drugs, but an extra 60 months for carrying a gun. If the defendant carried a gun while selling drugs on Tuesday as well, the sentence would be a total of 36 months for selling the drugs on both days, but another 300 months would be added for carrying a gun the second day, for a total sentence of 396 months. If the defendant carried a gun while selling drugs on Wednesday, another 300 months would be added, and so on.

Sentencestack170404The First Step Act changed the law so that the 300-month additional time would not be added unless a defendant had previously been convicted of a § 924(c) offense. That change would give Tuesday’s defendant a total sentence of 156 months instead of 396 months. However, the First Step Act did not make the change retroactive, leaving people sentenced on December 20, 2018, with 300-month add-on sentences, while those sentenced on December 22, 2018, would only get 60-month additional sentences.

The same retroactivity would apply to changes in the drug mandatory minimum sentences mandated by the First Step Act. The mandatory life sentence under 21 USC § 841(b)(1)(A) for offenses enhanced by prior drug convictions was reduced to 25 years, and the 20-year mandatory minimum in 21 USC § 841(b)(1)(B) for offenses involving lesser drug quantities was cut to 15 years.

The First Step Act included another change. People convicted of drug trafficking under 21 USC § 841 would receive higher sentences if they had prior “felony drug convictions,” even if they had received probation for the offense. First Step substituted “serious drug felony,” which requires that the defendant have served more than a year in prison for the offense. That change has been extended to all punishment sections of § 841(b)(1) and made the changes retroactive.

The Judiciary Committee approved the FSIA to move on to the Senate on a bipartisan vote. All 11 Democrats and three Republicans voted for FSIA, but only after Sen Ted Cruz (R-Texas) argued for three amendments that would have limited judges’ authority to reduce sentences. All three amendments failed, after which Cruz delivered a polemic against Democrats, predicting that FSIA would never pass the Senate because his amendments were rejected. The diatribe was epic, one in which Cruz used the phrase “murderers, rapists and child molesters” as a substitute for prisoners no fewer than ten times.

cruz210611A dramatic moment occurred when, part way through Cruz’s denunciation of more lenient sentences, Committee Chairman Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) interrupted to report that the union representing BOP corrections officers had thrown its support behind FSIA. That would have given more reasonable people reason the reflect on their denunciation of the dangers of letting judges make decisions on reducing sentences. I mean, if the people who spend their careers guarding federal inmates think that a little flexibility and leniency in sentencing is appropriate, maybe a guy who leaves his constituents freezing in the dark while he jets off to Cancun should defer to their judgment.

But reflection and reason are for lesser mortals, not Ted (who has been described by a fellow Republican in terms not normally associated with mortals).

Even if Cruz is wrong, the FSIA and other bills – the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act (S.312), passed by the Committee on May 27, and the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act of 2021 (S.601), approved yesterday – have a long way to go. The full Senate and House of Representatives both must pass the measures. There is no schedule for full Congressional action.

First Step Implementation Act of 2021

Senate Judiciary Committee, Hearing (June 10, 2021)

Office of Senator Charles Grassley, Senate Judiciary Committee Advances Two Bipartisan Durbin, Grassley Criminal Justice Bills (June 10, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

Senate Judiciary Committee: A Win, A Tie and A Rain Delay – Update for May 28, 2021

Leave a comment

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

AN ONLY PARTLY SATISFYING DAY AT THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

The Senate Judiciary Committee considered three criminal justice reform bills yesterday, with results that were a little heartening, a little disheartening.
heartening210528The Committee approved the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act, S.312, 14-8. The bill now goes to the full Senate. The vote came despite the strenuous objections of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), who claimed that the bill would let dangerous criminals out on the street to violently accost fair maidens (or that’s how he sounded). Cotton didn’t cotton to approving something with “COVID-19” in the title, when BOP Director Michael Carvajal assured the Committee last month that by May 15th, every BOP inmate that wanted the vaccine would have received it.

That the BOP did not meet its deadline two weeks ago had little meaning. In fact, at 23 facilities – including some camps – fewer than 300 inmates had gotten the vaccine as of May 14. FPC Alderson, according to BOP records, had only 57 inmates vaccinated. While it’s possible that fewer than 10% of Alderson’s 622 inmates (all female) agreed to take the vaccine, but that’s pretty unlikely.

cotton171226Cotton tried to amend the bill so that it would apply only to inmates who had not been vaccinated for medical reasons approved by the BOP. That amendment failed.

An amendment that was approved, however, struck the bill’s proposed age reduction from 60 to 50. As amended, an elderly offender still must be 60, but he or she need only serve two-thirds of the statutory sentence (the total sentence minus good conduct time). It also adds judicial review for denial of elderly offender home detention, cuts the period for administrative exhaustion for compassionate release. Finally, during the pandemic, any defendant considered to be at a higher risk for severe illness from COVID–19, including because the defendant is 60 years of age or older or has an underlying medical condition, would by definition “an extraordinary and compelling reason” under 18 USC 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) for compassionate release.

Committee Chair Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who sponsored the proposed legislation, told the committee before the bill’s passage that the pandemic has shown that the BOP can’t be trusted to identify and release prisoners who are vulnerable to the coronavirus.

fail200526“The Bureau of Prisons failed,” Durbin said, noting that nearly 31,000 inmates requested compassionate release during the pandemic and the Bureau of Prisons approved only 36, fewer requests than it approved in 2019, before the pandemic. Durbin said that 35 federal inmates died while waiting for the BOP to rule on their requests.

The Committee began debating the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act of 2021 (S. 601). That bill would prohibit judges from considering conduct underlying an acquitted count in sentencing. Predictably, Cotton opposed that as well, but concerns were also expressed by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island).

Cornyn said that judges should be allowed to consider acquitted offenses in some cases, giving the example of a sexual offender who has repeatedly abused a victim and has some charges dropped because they are based on abuse that happened too long ago to be prosecuted. He apparently did not distinguish between dropped charges and charges a jury refused to convict on.

“There are circumstances that would endure to the benefit of a guilty criminal defendant and violate the rights of crime victims to be heard as provided by law,” Cornyn said.

Whitehouse, a former prosecutor, argued that judges should not have their hands tied at sentencing because some technical reason prevented conviction for conduct that clearly occurred. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), another former prosecutor, supported the measure.

Durbin decided to hold further consideration on S.601 to incorporate amendments.

disheartening210528The Committee adjourned for a Senate roll-call vote, and thus did not start discussing the First Step Implementation Act of 2021 (S. 1014), the star of the day’s hearing. This is the most consequential of pending bills, one which would grant judges the option to apply the 18 USC 3553(f) safety valve to a larger number of drug offenders and – most significant – make the reductions in mandatory minimums for drug and gun offenses granted in § 401 and 403 of the First Step Act retroactive.

The Committee should be taking up the First Step Implementation Act of 2021 soon. That is heartening.

Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Executive Business Meeting (May 27)

– Thomas L. Root

Dog Bites Man: Judge Says NYC BOP Facilities Run By Morons – Update for May 14, 2021

Leave a comment

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

JUDGE SAYS “DISGUSTING, INHUMAN” BOP NYC FACILITIES ARE RUN BY MORONS

moron210514A senior Federal judge who navigated her Manhattan-based court through the pandemic denounced conditions at MDC Brooklyn and MCC New York as “disgusting” and “inhuman” during the sentencing last month of a woman who spent months in solitary confinement after contracting COVID-19.

US District Court Judge Colleen McMahon said in a transcript just obtained by the Washington Post that the facilities are “run by morons.” During the sentencing, McMahon castigated the BOP, saying the agency’s ineptitude and failure to “do anything meaningful” at the MCC in Manhattan and MDC Brooklyn amounted to the “single thing in the five years that I was chief judge of this court that made me the craziest.”

“It is the finding of this court that the conditions to which the defendant was subjected are as disgusting, inhuman as anything I’ve heard about any Colombian prison,” McMahon said on the record, “but more so because we’re supposed to be better than that.”

The BOP responded in a statement that it “takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintain the safety of correctional staff and the community.”

plague200406Meanwhile, The Trentonian reported last week that FCI Fort Dix set as COVID-19 record for the worst outbreaks of any federal facility. New Jersey US Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, both Democrats, called on the BOP last month to “prioritize the vaccination program” at FCI Fort Dix. More than 70% of the 2,800 prisoners at Fort Dix have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. As of last week, 52% of Fort Dix inmates have been vaccinated.

Also last week, the Legislative Committee of the Federal Public and Community Defenders wrote a 16-page letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) asking for Congressional action to reform the BOP in areas as varied as inmate healthcare to compassionate release to First Step Act programming credits.

“Although the Biden Administration has taken significant steps to beat back COVID-19 in the community,” the letter said, “individuals in BOP custody remain at high risk. Over a year into the pandemic, they are subject to harsh and restrictive conditions of confinement and lack adequate access to medical care, mental health services, and programming. The improvements to programming promised by the First Step Act  generally stand unfulfilled.”

Most significant was criticism of BOP healthcare that went beyond the pandemic: “Dr. Homer Venters, a physician and epidemiologist who has inspected several BOP facilities to assess their COVID-19 response, identified a “disturbing lack of access to care when a new medical problem is encountered” and is concerned that “[w]ithout a fundamental shift in how BOP approaches… health services, people in BOP custody will continue to suffer from preventable illness and death, including the inevitable and subsequent infectious disease outbreaks.”

COVIDvaccine201221The letter also took aim at the high vaccine refusal rate by BOP staff (currently 50.5% refused), staffing shortages, and the BOP’s poor record on granting compassionate release.

The letter complains that the BOP’s proposed rule on awarding earned time credit “impermissibly restricts an individual’s ability to earn time credits, makes it too easy to lose those credits, and unduly excludes broad categories from the earned time credit system. In short, these provisions kneecap the FSA’s incentive structure and make it less likely individuals will participate in programs and activities to reduce recidivism and increase public safety.” The letter notes that if a prisoner programmed 40 hours a week, it would take more time to earn a year’s credit than the length of the average federal sentence.

The Trentonian, Ft Dix FCI has largest total COVID-19 cases among U.S. federal prisons (May 4, 2021)

Federal Public and Community Defenders, Letter to Sens Durbin and Grassley (May 4, 2021)

Washington Post, Judge says ‘morons’ run New York’s federal jails, denounces ‘inhuman’ conditions (May 7, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

Odd Couple Beat Up on Prison Head – Update for April 20, 2021

Leave a comment

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

SENATORS UNHAPPY OVER FIRST STEP IMPLEMENTATIONS

oddcouple210219Last Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight hearing opened with Committee chair Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) both blasting the BOP not just for its failures in placing inmates in home confinement, but for the PATTERN recidivism tool – which Durbin called “deeply flawed” – and for what they see as BOP slow-walking implementation of First Step Act programming.

Durbin complained that PATTERN contained “stunning racial disparity in inmate classification, and that the BOP’s proposed rule for awarding earned time credit – which requires 240 actual hours of programs for one month’s credit – “severely limits the ability to earn these credits, and that undermines participation.”

“Our prison system at the federal level is failing,” Durbin said in his opening remarks, “failing to fulfill its fundamental purpose, the rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals.”

Grassley said he was “disheartened with the lackluster implementation of the First Step Act. “The DOJ and Bureau of Prisons are implementing the First Step Act as if they want it to fail. I hope this is not true but actions speak louder than words.”

BOP Director Michael Carvajal said that COVID had hampered full rollout of the programming inmates could complete for earned credits that reduced their sentences, but Grassley responded, “I don’t think that national eFSAsabotage210420mergency can be used as a scapegoat… It seems like the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons have failed in this effort… Even if it isn’t so, at some point it becomes a perception, and perceptions become a reality.”

Carvajal told the Committee that about 50% of the 125,000 inmates reviewed were eligible to take programming for earned time credits. He told the Committee that last year, “even through COVID, we had over 25,000 inmates complete a program for time credit.”

This was a surprising admission, in my view. In litigation, the BOP has argued that its obligation to implement the evidence-based reduction programs and award Earned Time credits will not take effect until January 2022. That position – already rejected by several courts – seems to be undercut by Carvajal’s statement to lawmakers that 25,000 inmates got some ETC credit during 2020.

Senate Judiciary Committee, Oversight of the Bureau of Prisons (April 15, 2021)

Goodman v. Ortiz, Case No 20-7582, 2020 US Dist LEXIS 153874 (DNJ Aug 25, 2020)

– Thomas L. Root