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Judiciary Committee Exercised Over Home Confinees Returning to Prison – Update for April 16, 2021

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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.

LOBBYING EFFORT ON CARES ACT HOME CONFINEMENT MAY BE BEARING FRUIT

FAMM started to turn up the heat last week on an effort to get President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland to rescind the January 15 memo from DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel that would lead to the return of people now on home confinement under CARES Act placement to federal prison when the pandemic ends.

The memo was a prime topic yesterday when Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Judging from the questions coming from both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee (with the exception of the execrable Sen. Tom Cotton [R-Klingon Empire] and Sen. Josh Hawley [R-Mongol Horde]), the FAMM campaign is bearing fruit.

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The OLC memo, issued in the final days of the Trump administration, would force the BOP to send several thousand people currently on home confinement. Carvajal said it would probably affect somewhere around 2,500 people now on home confinement with a year or more to go on their sentences. A few more than 300 have lengthy sentences left. Of the group, he said 21 have been returned to BOP custody, but only two of those were because of new criminal conduct.

The memo is incorrect as a matter of law and would impose devastating human costs, as well as a negative impact on public safety. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), chair of the Committee, said yesterday he was writing to Garland to urge him to reconsider his predecessor’s opinion.

FAMM and 28 other advocacy groups sent a letter to Biden and Garland on April 1st. FAMM has launched the “Keep Them Home” campaign, and is both collecting signatures on a petition and calling on people to call Garland’s office in order to get the Administration to rescind the memo.

home190109FAMM president Kevin Ring told The Appeal that those who were released did not expect to have to return to prison. “These folks came home and were told, ‘You’re not going to have to come back,’” Ring said. “They reunited with their families. Some of them have kids who they said, ‘I’m home.’ They said, ‘Do you have to go back, Dad?’ ‘No.’ So this changes everything.”

Earlier, the BOP declined to answer reporters’ questions about the memo, but Joe Rojas, Southeast Regional Vice President of the union representing BOP employees, said sending everyone back to prison would be logistically impossible. “We have no staff,” he told The Sentinel, “We are already in chaos as it is.”

But yesterday, Carvajal said that the BOP has ample space to absorb the home confinees if they were to return. Nevertheless, he expressed no opinion on whether they should come back. The Director noted that the issue is not immediate, because the pandemic emergency has been extended by the President.

home210218My take on Carvajal’s position (for what it’s worth) is that his bias leans toward leaving people who have complied with their home confinement terms at home. He said repeatedly that the BOP’s mission was to successfully return people to the committee, and as long as home confinees are successful at home, there was nothing wrong with leaving them there.

However, Carvajal said that the BOP’s primary interest was to follow the law, and he urged lawmakers to amend the home confinement statute to make clear what should be done.

The Appeal, Unless The Biden Administration Acts, Thousands Could Go Back To Federal Prison (April 5, 2021)

FAMM Petition

KSU The Sentinel, Inmates under house arrest in the event of a pandemic could return to prisons in the United States (April 11, 2021)

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

– Thomas L. Root

Drug and 924(c) Sentence Reduction, Retroactivity Bills Introduced – Update for March 29, 2021

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TWO BILLS CUTTING MANDATORY MINIMUMS, PROPOSING RETROACTIVITY, INTRODUCED IN SENATE

The important but piecemeal work of criminal justice reform continued last week with two significant bills being introduced in the Senate.

smart210328Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and 11 cosponsors introduced S.1013, the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021, seeking once again to reform some drug mandatory minimums. At the same time, Durbin and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced S.1014, the First Step Implementation Act of 2021.

The Smarter Sentencing Act, an updated version of the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2019 (which went nowhere), continues the mandatory minimum adjustments to 21 USC § 841(b), the sentencing section of the drug trafficking statute begun by the First Step Act. First Step adjusted mandatory life in § 841(b)(1)(A) to 25 years, and mandatory 20 years in the same subsection to 15 years. The Smarter Sentencing Act proposes similar adjustments:

(b)(1)(A): The 15-year mandatory minimum for a prior drug offense would drop to 10 years, and the 10-year mandatory minimum floor would drop to 5 years.

(b)(1)(B): The 10-year mandatory minimum for a prior drug offense would drop to 5 years, and the 5-year mandatory minimum floor would drop to 2 years.

Smarter Sentencing would also create a new category of `courier’ for a defendant whose role was limited to transporting or storing drugs or money. The mandatory minimum for a courier under 21 USC § 960, the importation statute, would essentially be cut in half. It would not affect mandatory minimums in 21 USC § 841(b).

Importantly, the bill makes its changes retroactive, enabling people who now have mandatory minimum sentences changed by the bill to ask their judges for a sentence reduction.

mandatory170612Lee and Durbin first introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act in 2013. Several of its provisions made it into the First Step Act, which was enacted into law in 2018, but the changes in mandatory minimums for most drug offenses would not.

“Mandatory minimum penalties have played a large role in the explosion of the U.S. prison population, often leading to sentences that are unfair, fiscally irresponsible, and a threat to public safety,” Sen. Durbin said in a press release. “The First Step Act was a critical move in the right direction, but there is much more work to be done to reform our criminal justice system. I will keep fighting to get this commonsense, bipartisan legislation through the Senate with my colleague, Senator Lee.”

Meanwhile, S.1014 – the First Step Implementation Act – is equally significant. It would extend retroactivity to anyone sentenced for drug or stacked § 924(c) offenses sentenced prior to the 2018 First Step Act and let judges waive criminal history limitations that keep defendants from getting the 18 USC § 3553 safety value.

Additionally, the bill corrects a weird anomaly in the First Step Act that redefined prior drug cases for which a defendant can get an § 851 enhancement (which increases the mandatory minimum where the defendant has certain prior drug convictions) to limit such priors to crimes punishable by more than 10 years for which the defendant was actually sentenced to more than a year. Under the 2018 bill, the change affected people sentenced under §§ 841(b)(1)(A) and (b)(1)(B), but not people sentenced under the lowest level of sentence, § 841(b)(1)(C). S.1014 applies the same “serious drug felony” definition to all three subsections.

The sleeper in S.1014 is that it would let virtually anyone sentenced under § 841(c) prior to the 2018 First Step Act seek a reduction using a procedure a lot like the Fair Sentencing Act retroactivity motions. The sheer number of motions likely to be filed might be enough to give Congress pause on this one.

usscmembers210328The bill also refines a number of Sentencing Commission goals – such as keeping down the prison population and ensuring that Guidelines don’t have adverse racial impacts. All of that would be great, but – as Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor noted last week – “currently, six of the seven voting members’ seats are vacant. The votes of at least four members are required for the Commission to promulgate amendments to the Guidelines.” The Commission has been paralyzed by lack of quorum since December 2018. The Senate has to confirm at least three new members – and none has yet been nominated by President Biden – before the Commission can do anything.

As for the two new bills, introduction hardly means approval. While Ohio State law professor Doug Berman is skeptical of their chances, he notes that “prior iterations of [the Smarter Sentencing Act] got votes in Senate Judiciary Committee from the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Moreover, the current chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee is Senator Durbin and the current President campaigned on a platform that included an express promise to work for the passage of legislation to repeal mandatory minimums at the federal level. Given that commitment, Prez Biden should be a vocal supporter of this bill or should oppose it only because it does not go far enough because it merely seeks to ‘reduce mandatory minimum penalties for certain nonviolent drug offenses,’ rather than entirely eliminate them.

Committee on the Judiciary, Durbin, Lee Introduce Smarter Sentencing Act (March 26, 2021)

Congressional Record, Statements On Introduced Bills And Joint Resolutions (S.1013 and S.1014) (March 25, 2021)

Sentencing Law and Policy, Senators Durbin and Grassley re-introduce “Smarter Sentencing Act” to reduce federal drug mandatory minimums (March 26, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

Great Clemency Idea Or Stupid Political Stunt? – Update for March 18, 2021

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WASHINGTON WEEK: SEEKING CLEMENCY FOR SOME LADIES
"I won!"
“I won!”

Congresswomen Cori Bush (D-Missouri) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) last Friday joined with the National Council for Incarcerated & Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls’ initiative calling on President Joseph Biden to grant 100 women clemency in his first 100 days in office. Speaking at an event held outside the White House, Pressley told the President “to exercise his clemency authority,” adding he can grant clemency to the 100 women “by the stroke of a pen.”

Vox said several weeks ago that “advocates want Biden to act quickly” on clemency. “They point to epidemics of Covid-19 in jails and prisons, which could be eased if there were fewer people in those settings to spread the coronavirus. And they argue that acting too slowly would repeat the mistakes of Biden’s predecessors, who, if they moved on clemency at all, did so too late during their terms to do the long, hard work of broader reforms.”

clemencyjack161229Acting quickly on clemency is a great idea, but “100 women in 100 days” is nothing but a political stunt. The greatest danger in a proposal like this one is that if Biden knuckles under, 100 inmates get clemency, and then the Administration will check clemency off its “to-do” list, moving on to the next domestic issue. The problem with the clemency system – beyond the obvious, that 14,000 petitions are pending, many for years – is that the arbitrariness and bias of a system that relies on mercy from the very people who make their careers locking up defendants has a systemic infirmity that must be addressed. A political stunt that relies on an alliterative label – ‘100 in 100…’, like there’s something significant about the base-10 number system – simply detracts from the serious work to be done while delivering commonsense mercy in a scattershot and ineffective way.

The well-meaning people behind this have little idea of the effect of their Lafayette Park theatre on the inmates. I have had several emails this week from women inmates informing me that a list of 100 inmates was handed to the President in the Oval Office, and that he was ready to act. They wondered if they were on the list. Oh, if life only imitated rumor…

Why not simply distribute 151,703 scratch-off cards to the BOP population, with only 100 winners among them? That approach would make as much sense, while adding a bit of drama and excitement to the event.

crackpowder160606Last Tuesday, Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), Bobby Scott (D-Virginia), Kelly Armstrong (R-North Dakota), and Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) introduced the Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law (EQUAL) Act in the House. The bipartisan legislation would eliminate the federal crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity and retroactively apply it to those already convicted or sentenced.

The measure is identical to the measure introduced in the Senate by Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) and Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) five weeks ago.

USA Today, ‘No justice in destroying lives’: Pressley, Bush call on Biden to grant clemency to 100 women in 100 days (March 12, 2021)

Vox, Biden’s secret weapon for criminal justice reform (March 1, 2021)

Atlanta Daily World, Congress Introduces Bill to Eliminate Sentencing Disparity Between Crack and Powder Cocaine (March 10, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

Last Week in Washington… – Update for March 11, 2021

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ODD COUPLE STRIKE AGAIN; CALL TO REPEAL AEDPA

oddcouple210219A few weeks ago, Senators Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the top two guys on the Senate Judiciary Committee, teamed up to introduce the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act (S.312), which would make grant of compassionate release for COVID-related reasons easier and relax the Elderly Offender Program age and sentence limits. Last week, the odd couple was at it again, introducing the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act (S.601).

The Act, a similar version of which was introduced last year but died without a vote, would prohibit federal courts from using conduct for which a defendant was acquitted as factors to pump up Guidelines scores.  

nuns170427The problem is this: Donnie Dopehead is charged with two drug counts, one for distributing 100 kilos of marijuana and the other for selling 15 grams of cocaine. The Feds have Donnie dead to rights on the coke: as he sold it to his customers, a busload of nuns was stopped at the light, and they all saw it happen. But the marijuana beef is based on the vague testimony of a demented neighbor with poor eyesight, who – on the witness stand – admits it may have been bales of hay, not marijuana, and the guy unloading it may have been Clarence Crackfiend, not Donnie.

The jury acquits Donnie of the pot, but convicts on the coke.

If Donnie had no prior criminal record, his sentencing range for the cocaine of which he was convicted would be 10-16 months. But at sentencing, the court will also consider the marijuana, if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that Donnie dealt it. In sentencing law, “preponderance” seems to mean that the prosecutor said it, and that’s good enough for the judge.  With the pot added in, Donnie’s Guideline sentencing range is 51-63 months.

hammer160509The thinking (and I employ that term loosely) is that just because the jury said the government hadn’t proved the pot charge beyond a reasonable doubt didn’t mean that it hadn’t been proved by a preponderance of the evidence. And the lower evidentiary standard, coupled with the loosey-goosey procedural protections of a sentencing proceeding, means that the defendant has little of avoiding a five-year sentence for what should be more like 12 months.

The Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act, simply enough, would have said in Donnie’s case that the court could sentence on the cocaine, but not the pot.

An identical bill, backed by a long list of conservative and liberal advocacy groups, is being introduced in the House by Reps Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) and Kelly Armstrong (R-North Dakota).

You may reasonably suspect that this bill, along with the Safer Detention Act and other measures may be rolled together in a larger criminal justice package later this year.

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Meanwhile, a Washington Post article last week kicked off a series on the horror that is the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). Back in 1996, Congress took a chisel to habeas corpus, adopting procedural limitations that make arguing the merits of 2254 and 2255 motions – especially second ones – a byzantine nightmare, a “thicket of real through-the-looking-glass shit,” according to one long-time defense attorney.

The Post series will “look at how the AEDPA was passed, how it works in the real world, the injustices it has wrought and what we can do to fix it. The good news is that much of this can be fixed. Congress could repeal or reform the AEDPA tomorrow. And for all the criticism of his criminal justice record — most of it justified — Joe Biden was one of the most vocal critics of the AEDPA’s habeas provisions. The then-senator warned of dire consequences if those provisions passed. History has proved him right.”

S.601, A bill to amend section 3661 of title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the consideration of acquitted conduct at sentencing (March 4, 2021)

Press Release, Durbin, Grassley, Cohen, Armstrong Introduce Bipartisan, Bicameral Prohibiting Punishment Of Acquitted Conduct Act (March 4, 2021)

Washington Post, It’s time to repeal the worst criminal justice law of the past 30 years (March 3, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

Some Guys With Clout Propose Sentence Reform – Update for February 18, 2021

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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 ODD COUPLE ARE BACK… WITH A WELCOME BILL

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Sen Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ranking Republican on the Committee are a political odd couple if ever there was one. Liberal lion Durbin from uber-Democrat Illinois and an octogenarian raised-on-the-farm Republican seem to have nothing in common, but…

oddcouple210219But they are the duo who brought you the First Step Act, and last week they jointly introduced a bill to reform the Elderly Home Detention and compassionate release programs.

elderly180517The Elderly Offender program lets old folks (age 60 and above, so that includes your correspondent) – non-violent criminals whose continued incarceration cost the Bureau of Prison so much in medical expenses – serve the last third of their sentences on home confinement (where they pay for their room, board and medical, not Uncle Sam). That seems like a sweet deal for them and for the government. 

But trust the Bureau to manage to screw up a one-car parade. The BOP decided that two-thirds of the sentence meant two-thirds of the whole sentence, not for the good-time adjusted sentence that everyone ends up serving.  So an aged fraudster with a 100-month sentence – who will serve 85 months with good conduct time figured in – doesn’t get home confinement starting at 66.7% of 85 months, but instead must serve 66.7% of 100 months before he goes to home detention.

That’s not what Congress ever meant, as the House explained to the BOP last year in the HEROES Act (H.R.6800), which modified the statute to say as much). But HEROES never got a vote in the Senate.

elderly190109Now, Durbin’s and Grassley’s COVID-19 Safer Detention Act would clarify that the amount of time an inmate must serve to qualify for Elderly Home Detention should be calculated based on his or her 85% date, not the gross sentence. Additionally, the bill would reduce the minimum sentence for Elderly Home Detention from 66% to 50%, and give inmates who are denied Elderly Home Detention the right of judicial review.

The bill also proposes providing that COVID-19 vulnerability is a legitimate basis for compassionate release, and shortening the period prisoners must wait after submitting requests to the BOP to file with their courts from 30 to 10 days.

Three Republican and three Democrats have joined in sponsoring the bill. Ohio State law professor Doug Berman said last week in his Sentencing Law and Policy blog, “Senators Durbin and Grassley are now the leading member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would seem to improve the odds of this bill moving forward.”

Press release, Durbin, Grassley Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Reform Elderly Home Detention and Compassionate Release Amid COVID-19 Pandemic (February 10, 2021)

Sentencing Law and Policy, Senators Durbin and Grassley re-introduce “COVID-19 Safer Detention Act” (February 11, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root

BOP Fiddles, COVID Burns – Update for October 14, 2020

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HEY, FATSO! YOU’VE GOT COVID-19!

livebutonce201014The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cranked up its warning about obesity and COVID-19 last week. Last spring, if you had a BMI over 40 (6 feet tall and 295 lbs), you were at risk. At the end of June, that dropped to a BMI of 30+. That made a 6-feet tall guy weighing 221 lbs at risk.

Last week, the link between extra pounds and severe Covid-19 grew stronger as the CDC said that people who are merely overweight, not just the obese, may be at high risk of serious disease from the infection. Now, the risk starts with a BMI of 25. Besides the merely overweight (62% of America), smoking has been added to the risk-factor list.

The BOP, which has provided daily COVID-19 numbers since March 2020, dropped weekend reports a few weeks ago. Last Friday, the agency didn’t bother to update its numbers from the day before. Yesterday.s report had 1,745 sick inmates, 736 sick staff, COVID-19 in 119 institutions (98% of all facilities) and 135 inmate deaths.

The latest to die was Robert Pierce, a 52-year old Big Spring inmate, who fell ill September 18 and died last Friday. Meanwhile, the news media reported COVID-19 increases at USP Allenwood, Petersburg Medium, Raybrook and McDowell.

In a pair of letters to Attorney General William P. Barr and BOP Director Michael Carvajal, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) suggest that the agency’s response to coronavirus outbreaks in federal prisons is failing, and they question the BOP’s reliance on solitary confinement to isolate sick prisoners rather than granting compassionate release.

The Washington Post reported last week that “Federal prisoners, corrections staff, government inspectors and civil rights advocates have complained for months that the BOP’s strategies, when useful, are inconsistently applied. The overall inadequate response is leaving a vulnerable population at risk of infection and creating major vectors for transmission more than seven months into the pandemic.”

The BOP’s COVID death toll “is mounting evidence that efforts to contain the virus within BOP facilities are failing,” Durbin Warren wrote to Barr and Carvajal in one of the Oct. 2 letters, which were viewed by The Washington Post.

plague200406The Post previously reported that prison staff have raised concerns about a lack of personal protective equipment and unsafe workplace conditions — issues that have prompted federal employees to sue the government. According to reports by the DOJ Office of the Inspector General on federal corrections facilities nationwide, persistent staffing shortage has triggered regular lockdowns during the pandemic in which prisoners aren’t allowed out of their cells, are often unable to shower and face more restrictions than if they were in solitary confinement.

Bloomberg, CDC Expands COVID Risk Warning to Include Overweight People (October 8, 2020)

CDC, People with Certain Medical Conditions (October 6, 2020)

BOP, Inmate Death at FCI Big Spring (October 13, 2020)

Harrisburg Patriot, Another big increase in COVID-19 cases at the Allenwood medium-security prison (October 5, 2020)

Roanoke Times, Inmate at federal prison in Petersburg dies of COVID-19; 21 others are infected (October 7, 2020)

Washington Post, Warren, Durbin slam government’s ‘failing’ efforts to contain coronavirus in federal prisons (October 5, 2020)

– Thomas L. Root

Congress Lurching Toward Easing Compassionate, Elderly Offender Release? – Update for June 29, 2020

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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.

COVID-19 SPURS LAWMAKERS, CDC

corona200313Last week’s upsurge in COVID-19 cases nationally has begun to translate to an increase in Federal Bureau of Prisons inmates with coronavirus. A number that had dwindled last week to 1,256 by last Thursday shot back up to 1,429 as of last night. The inmate death count is 93, with COVID-19 present on 71 prison compounds throughout the BOP system (57% of all facilities).

As of yesterday, the BOP had tested 21,400 inmates, up about 12% from last week. The Bureau is still showing about 30% of inmates tested as positive for COVID-19, and it has only tested about now out of six inmates.

The noteworthy developments in COVID-19 last week, however, were not viral, but rather legislative and medical.

Legislative: Senators Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), principal authors of the First Step Act, last week jointly introduced S.4034, bipartisan legislation to reform the Elderly Offender Home Detention (EOHD) Program and compassionate release.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa)
                  Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa)

EOHD, authorized by First Step as part of 34 USC § 60541(g), permits the BOP to place prisoners who are 60 years old or older, convicted of non-violent offenses, and with good conduct in home detention for the remainder of their sentences. Compassionate release, expanded by First Step, permits a court to reduce a prisoner’s sentence for extraordinary and compelling reasons, pursuant to 18 USC § 3582(c)(1).

S.4034, dubbed the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act, would reform the EOHD and compassionate release by:

• Clarifying that the percentage of time an inmate needs to qualify for EOHD should calculated based on an inmate’s net sentence, including reductions for good time. Currently, the BOP charily calculates it as two-thirds of the total sentence, not two-thirds of the 85% of the sentence the inmate actually serves. This change has already passed the House by voice vote in HR 4018, which las been languishing in the Senate since last Christmas;

• Cutting the percentage of time an inmate must serve to qualify for  EOHD from two-thirds of the sentence to one-half;

• Making “old law” federal prisoners (those convicted prior to 1988) eligible for compassionate release;

• Making DC offenders housed in BOP facilities eligible for EOHD;

• Making denial of EOHD release subject to court review; and

• Providing that during the pandemic, COVID-19 vulnerability is deemed a basis for compassionate release, a statutory change that would prevent the government from trying to convince courts (and some have been convinced) that the pandemic is hardly extraordinary; and

• Shortening the period prisoners must wait for judicial review for elderly home detention and compassionate release from 30 to 10 days. Currently, there is no judicial review of a BOP denial of EOHD, and inmates must ask the BOP to file for compassionate release on their behalf, and wait 30 days for an answer before filing themselves.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois)
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois)

It is unclear whether the bill will pass, but sponsorship by a Democrat and Republican increases its odds. Hamodia reported that the bill “will likely be attached it to another bill, such as a stimulus bill or the police-reform bill currently being crafted by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.)”

Medical: The other COVID-19 major development last week was medical. Last Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta released updated COVID-19 guidelines to adjust the ages and expand the health problems that could make people more likely to have severe complications. The move comes amid the rising number of younger patients and new studies that show the effects of certain conditions.

The new CDC guidelines are crucial for prisoners, because courts determine whether movants for compassionate release qualify according to whether the inmates have one or more of the CDC risk factors.

First, the CDC walked back the “65 and over” risk factor, which many judges have interpreted as being a hard number, denying any health-concern consideration for a 64-year old but treating a 66-year old prisoner as knocking on death’s door.

death200330Instead, CDC highlights that all ages could catch the coronavirus but effects of the infection may get worse as people get older. “There’s not an exact cutoff of age at which people should or should not be concerned,” Jay Butler, the CDC’s deputy director of infectious diseases, said in a news briefing.

Of more relevance to prisoners, the CDC has found that risks associated with obesity start at a much lower level. The CDC had held that only the morbidly obese (body mass index of 42+) were at risk. Now, the CDC says anyone with a BMI of 30 or more is at risk.

Under the old standard, a 50-year old 6-foot tall man would have to weigh 310 lbs. to be at risk. Now, the same guy only has to tip the scales at 225 lbs. to exceed a 30 BMI.

Other conditions CDC identified as elevating COVID-19 risk included chronic kidney disease, COPD, weaker immune system due to organ transplant, heart conditions, sickle cell disease, type 1 and 2 diabetes, asthma, dementia, cerebrovascular diseases, cystic fibrosis, high blood pressure, liver disease, pulmonary fibrosis, and an inherited blood disorder known as thalassemia. The CDC also added pregnancy to the list.

A number of inmates have been denied compassionate release because judges decided their risk factors – such as hypertension and dementia – did not match the risk factors on the prior CDC list. There is no statutory limitation to the number of times an inmate may file for compassionate release (other than the judge’s ire, perhaps), meaning that the changing COVID-19 risk landscape offers prisoners a new shot at release.

COVID-19 Tracker: The Marshall Project is running a state-by-state COVID-19 prison tracker website, which includes “Federal” as a category. The site charts total cases, inmates and staff currently sick, deaths, and new cases by date.

S.4034, COVID-19 Safer Detention Act (introduced June 22, 2020)

Hamodia, New Senate Legislation Expands Early Release (June 23)

CDC, People of Any Age with Underlying Medical Conditions (June 25, 2020)

Medical Daily, CDC Updates Guidelines On Coronavirus Risk Factors (June 26)

The Marshall Project, A State-by-State Look at Coronavirus in Prisons (June 25)

– Thomas L. Root

Double Secret PATTERN Scoring – Update for June 1, 2020

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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.

BAIT AND SWITCH?

bait200601For those of you who just came in, the First Step Act, among many other things, mandated that the Federal Bureau of Prisons would employ a state-of-the-art risk and needs assessment program, intended to determine how likely an inmate was to be a recidivist upon release, and what programs would best address the factors making him or her likely to reoffend.

First Step provided that inmates could then earn credits for successfully completing the programming, credits that would enable them to go home earlier or obtain extra halfway house.

It was intended to be a win all around.

The Dept. of Justice conducted a 10-month long study-and-comment period beginning in April 2019 on how to best develop a risk and need assessment program that met First Step standards. That resulted in adoption of PATTERN (“Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs” for you folks who eschew acronyms). PATTERN employed a series of about a dozen static and dynamic factors to provide an aggregate number placing the inmate being tested in the minimum, low, medium or high category.

The original PATTERN factors were very publicly modified last January to lessen the risk that PATTERN might be unconsciously biased so that it returned higher scores for racial minorities. And with that, PATTERN was ready for use.

The BOP announced that all inmates had been rated by PATTERN, but a number of people from different institutions expressed frustration at getting their PATTERN score from BOP staff. A few swore their BOP case managers had no idea what PATTERN even was. Using the revised PATTERN matrix over the past four months, I have helped several people estimate their PATTERN scores. But in almost every case, when the people I helped received their actual PATTERN scores from the BOP, those scores were higher – sometimes much higher – and the reason for the discrepancy was a mystery.

topsecret200601We may now have an answer to the conundrum, but it is not a pretty one. ProPublica, an independent investigative journalism nonprofit, last week reported that it had obtained a 20-page policy document drafted by the BOP earlier this year that altered the PATTERN standards to make “it harder for an inmate to qualify as minimum risk.” The draft document, which does not appear to have been finalized, dramatically changes the maximum number of points for each risk category, according to ProPublica. “It really tanks the whole enterprise if, once an instrument is selected, it can be strategically altered to make sure low-risk people don’t get released,” Brandon Garrett, a Duke University law professor who studies risk assessment, was quoted as saying. “If you change the cut points, you’ve effectively changed the instrument.”

ProPublica said a BOP spokesman had confirmed that the Bureau had revised the risk categories without informing the public. The 2019 report was an “interim report,” ProPublica quotes the spokesman as having said. “The interim report mentioned that DOJ would seek feedback and update the tool accordingly, which was done.” The spokesman said the draft policy document “was not authorized for release.”

So, as Dean Wormer might have said, it’s like a double secret PATTERN score.

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Ohio State University law professor Doug Berman wrote in his Sentencing Policy and Law blog that the ProPublica report was “yet another ugly example of how the Department of Justice acts more like a Department of Incarceration.”

The ProPublica report came in a week in which former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was sent to home confinement, although he has served only a third of his sentence. The Cohen and Paul Manafort releases, a Marshall Project/NBC report said, are “raising questions about the BOP’s opaque process and its fairness.”

ProPublica reported that Senators Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who were First Step Act co-authors, said last week the DOJ’s inspector general has agreed to examine BOP’s compliance with Barr’s home confinement directive and overall response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

ProPublica, Bill Barr Promised to Release Prisoners Threatened by Coronavirus — Even as the Feds Secretly Made It Harder for Them to Get Out (May 26)

Sentencing Law and Policy, “Bill Barr Promised to Release Prisoners Threatened by Coronavirus — Even as the Feds Secretly Made It Harder for Them to Get Out” (May 27)

The Marshall Project, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort Got to Leave Federal Prison Due to COVID-19. They’re The Exception (May 21)

– Thomas L. Root

Smarter Sentencing Act Back In The Senate Hopper – Update for November 19, 2019

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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.

SMARTER SENTENCING ACT RE-INTRODUCED IN SENATE
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)

The Smarter Sentencing Act, a bill intended to further reduce drug mandatory minimum sentences, was reintroduced in the Senate last week by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As of the date of this report, we have no bill number to associate with the legislation.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois)
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois)

A lot of what had been contained in prior versions of the SSA, a bill which has been introduced in every Congress since 2013, was included in the First Step Act. What the current version contains is unclear, because the text of the proposed bill has not yet been released. However, Durbin’s office said “the central remaining sentencing reform in the Lee-Durbin legislation would reduce mandatory minimum penalties for certain nonviolent drug offenses.”

In the last iteration of the bill, S.1933 (115th Congress, 2017-18), the bill proposed an expanded “safety valve” under 18 USC § 3553(f) to allow a court to impose a sentence below the statutory mandatory minimum for an otherwise eligible drug offender who has three or fewer criminal history points. This change was incorporated into the First Step Act. Also, last year’s SSA reduced mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses specified in 21 USC § 841(b)(1)(A) and (b)(1)(B):

•  from 10 years to 5 years for a first-time high-level offense (e.g., one kilogram or more of heroin),

•  from 20 years to 10 years for a high-level offense after one prior felony drug offense,

•  from life to 25 years for a high-level offense after two or more prior felony drug offenses,

•  from 5 years to 2 years for a first-time low-level offense (e.g., 100 to 999 grams of heroin), and

•  from 10 years to 5 years for a low-level offense after one prior felony drug offense.

The First Step Act incorporated the life-to-25 year and the 20-to-15 year reductions, but not the remainders.

Additionally, last year’s SSA made existing mandatory minimums inapplicable to a defendant who functions a courier; and establishes new, shorter mandatory minimum prison terms for a courier.

The current version of the Smarter Sentencing Act “gives federal judges the authority to conduct individualized reviews to determine the appropriate sentences for certain nonviolent drug offenses,” Durbin said in a press release.

BILL-DOA191120Lee said, “The SSA will give judges the flexibility and discretion they need to impose stiff sentences on the most serious drug lords and cartel bosses, while enabling nonviolent offenders to return more quickly to their families and communities.”

The bill is cosponsored by ten Democratic senators, including three presidential contenders, making the likelihood it will pass in the Senate virtually zero.

The Justice Roundtable, Durbin, Lee Reintroduce Smarter Sentencing Act (Nov. 16)

– Thomas L. Root

A Lesson in Government – Update for October 17, 2019

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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.

HOW (AND WHY) OUR LAWS ARE MADE

howlawsmade191018Remember government class in high school? Not so much, huh? Back to school time, boys and girls… Here’s a real-life example of how legislation is written:

In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act, reducing the 100-1 ratio of crack to powder cocaine to 18-1. Under the old regime, a defendant with 1 gram of crack cocaine was deemed to have 100 grams of powder cocaine. Because sentences vary in proportion to the amount of controlled substance possessed, a defendant (almost always black) with a slight amount of crack was punished much more severely than a defendant (usually white) with a slight amount of powder coke.

The FSA as proposed would have eliminated the disparity altogether, so that the mandatory minimum for a kilo of powder was the same for a kilo of crack. The House passed the bill with a 100-1 ration reduced to 1-1. But when the bill finally passed the Senate, 1-1 has mystically become 18-1. No one could figure out where the 18-1 ratio came from. Careful deliberation? Scientific studies?

sessions170811“We could find no objective proof that crack cocaine was in fact more dangerous than powder cocaine,” said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, explaining the rationale behind the original draft. But then-Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-Alabama) was opposed to changing the ratio at all, believing that the crime rate was falling because more people were being locked away for a long time (as well as thoroughly enjoying the prospect of those dangerous black criminals from the hood being warehoused in federal prisons for decades on end).

The day the bill was to come up for a committee vote, Durbin ran into Sessions at the Senate gym. Durbin recounted, “I said to Jeff, “come on, Jeff. We can’t just stop the conversation and see this bill die in committee.” said Durbin. “If you won’t do this 1-1 deal, what deal will you do?”

Sessions offered lowering 100-to-1 to 25-to-1. Durbin countered, 10-to-1. No dice, Sessions said.

What about 15-to-1?

“I’ll take 18-to-1,” Durbin recalls as Sessions’ response.

“We moved from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1 because of a conversation in the Senate gym, that is literally how it happened,” said Durbin.

violent160620A further lesson, this one on what influences legislators. It does not matter how many success stories arise from people who got out early because of the First Step Act’s retroactivity for crack defendants. The public will be reminded endlessly of the one failure.

Stories last week continued to highlight Joel Francisco, released on a sentence reduction last spring, who is a fugitive after allegedly stabbing a man to death in a Providence, Rhode Island, hookah lounge. The Providence Journal again noted that “the life sentence was reduced to time served under a bipartisan criminal justice reform law signed by President Trump in December.”

The conservative American Thinker was more graphic:

Cmdr. Thomas Verdi, the deputy chief of the Providence Police Department, who was familiar with Francisco, warned federal officials that the ‘crown prince of the Almighty Latin Kings’ gang… had a ‘propensity for violence…” At the news of his release, Verdi expressed his doubts about Francisco’s rehabilitation. He was right. Last Wednesday, Francisco, 41, stabbed 46-year old Troy Pine to death.

It only takes one failure, and a compliant news media, to poison the public on sentencing reform.

An opinion piece in The Hill this week, however, tried to put the Francisco matter in context: 

[I]f Francisco is guilty of this crime, he is the exception not the norm. Thousands of individuals are being released from custody under the First Step Act, and many more who have worked hard to prove their rehabilitation stand to benefit in the months to come. While it’s still too early to assess how many of these individuals will commit a new offense, there has hardly been a widespread spike in crime.  

The criminal justice system is not perfect; there will always be cases where someone returns to crime after re-entering society. The only way to guarantee that this doesn’t happen – the fear-filled, totalitarian way – is to imprison everyone who commits a crime for life. The pragmatic, limited-government way is to continue reforming the criminal justice system until we’ve achieved a balanced measure of accountability and rehabilitation.

Peoria, Illinois, Journal Star, Sen. Dick Durbin recalls how he and Jeff Sessions struck deal on Fair Sentencing Act in Senate gym (Oct. 10, 2019)

Providence Journal, Heartbroken father urges son, accused of fatal Providence stabbing, to turn himself in (Oct. 9, 2019)

American Thinker, Trump-supported early prison release law draws blood (Oct. 10, 2019)

The Hill, Don’t give up on the First Step Act (Oct. 17, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root