Tag Archives: post-sentence rehabilitation

5th Circuit Endorses District Court Discretion on Compassionate Release Motions – Update for July 18, 2024

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

5TH CIRCUIT DERAILS DOJ EFFORT TO DELEGITIMIZE GUIDELINES

ratchet211108I suppose it is unsurprising that the Dept of Justice sees appropriate judicial discretion as a ratchet. It’s fine if a judge employs his or her flexibility to tighten the screws on a defendant, but any attempt to fashion a remedy that seeks to ameliorate harsh sentences that could not be imposed today is seen by the denizens of the US Attorney’s offices as a threat to the republic.

After the First Step Act permitted prisoners to bring so-called compassionate release motions – petitioning courts under 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(A) to reduce sentences for extraordinary and compelling reasons – courts labored for almost five years to pound square-peg Sentencing Guideline 1B1.13 into the new round hole of defendant-initiated compassionate release motions. The old version of 1B1.13, written back in the day when only the Federal Bureau of Prisons could initiate a compassionate release request, was minimally relevant to the new regime. However, the Sentencing Commission lost its quorum a mere 11 days after First Step was signed into law, and could not promulgate a new § 1B1.13 for prisoner-brought motions.

Nearly all courts of appeal rejected DOJ demands that the old § 1B1.13 be slavishly applied to compassionate release motions, holding that commentary for motions brought by the BOP was inapplicable to motions brought by defendants and that what constituted extraordinary and compelling reasons for compassionate release motions was left to the broad discretion of district courts, limited only by the statute’s directive that rehabilitation alone was an insufficient basis for a sentence reduction.

In the absence of a guiding Sentencing Commission policy statement, appellate courts split on whether district courts could consider non-retroactive changes in the law in deciding whether extraordinary and compelling reasons existed for compassionate release. Such was a major concern. First Step changed mandatory minimum sentences for a number of drug offenses and clarified a drafting blunder in 18 USC § 924(c) – which imposes mandatory consecutive sentences for using or carrying a gun in a drug offense or crime of violence – but did not make those changes retroactive.

In some circuits, prisoners with draconian 50-year-plus sentences for 924(c) offenses that today would carry 15 years could get relief. In other places, appellate courts ruled that such reductions were impermissible because old § 1B1.13 did not permit it.

draconian170725That was the state of things until last November, when the reconstituted Sentencing Commission’s rewritten 1B1.13 became effective. The new 1B1.13 provided ample guidance as to what a district court must consider to be “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for grant of a 3582(c)(1)(A) motion, including

[i]f a defendant received an unusually long sentence and has served at least 10 years of the term of imprisonment, a change in the law (other than an amendment to the Guidelines Manual that has not been made retroactive) may be considered in determining whether the defendant presents an extraordinary and compelling reason, but only where such change would produce a gross disparity between the sentence being served and the sentence likely to be imposed at the time the motion is filed, and after full consideration of the defendant’s individualized circumstances.

The USSC also added a “catch-all,” authorizing district courts to consider as extraordinary and compelling reasons “any other circumstance or combination of circumstances that, when considered by themselves or together with any of the reasons [listed in 1B1.13] are similar in gravity…”

The DOJ immediately mounted a nationwide attack on the new 1B1.13, arguing (among other things) that allowing the consideration of changes in the law that made the old sentences disparately long exceeded the Commission’s legal authority and supplanted Congress’s legislative role by permitting the revision of sentences that Congress did not wish to make retroactive.

This full-throated attack on the new 1B1.13, which Congress had six months to reject but chose not to, finally got to an appellate court.

careeroffender22062Joel Jean was locked up in 2009 for a cocaine distribution crime and a § 924(c) offense. He had three prior state drug convictions, and as a result, he was classified as a Guidelines “career offender,” which came with a recommended sentencing range of 352-425 months. The district court gave him a break, sentencing him to 292 months’ imprisonment.

In the years following Joel’s conviction, a series of Supreme Court and 5th Circuit cases redefined what could be considered a qualifying offense for the “career offender” enhancement. Those held that some of Joel’s Texas convictions no longer qualified to make him a “career offender.” As a result, “it is undisputed that if he were to be sentenced today, Joel would not be classified as a career offender under § 4B1.1.”

Joel filed a compassionate release motion, arguing that non-retroactive changes in the law would result in a substantially shorter sentence today if he were sentenced today and that his post-sentencing conduct and rehabilitation weighed in favor of compassionate release.

To be sure, Joel’s rehabilitation efforts – good conduct, successful programming, and comportment that resulted in laudatory letters from BOP staff – were exceptional. The district court was impressed, granting Joel’s motion and resentencing him to time served. The government, however, was dissatisfied with the decade-length pound of flesh it had gotten from Joel. It appealed, arguing that the district court could not consider non-retroactive changes in the law and that Joel should return to prison.

Last week, the 5th Circuit rejected the government’s position, holding that a sentencing court has the “discretion to hold that non-retroactive changes in the law, when combined with extraordinary rehabilitation, amount to extraordinary and compelling reasons warranting compassionate release.”

The Circuit ruled that “there is no textual basis [in statute] for creating a categorical bar against district courts considering non-retroactive changes in the law as one factor” nor did appellate precedent or 1B1.13 prohibit including such factors in a compassionate release calculus.

In Concepcion v. United States, the 5th observed, the Supreme Court held that

Federal courts historically have exercised this broad discretion to consider all relevant information at an initial sentencing hearing, consistent with their responsibility to sentence the whole person before them. That discretion also carries forward to later proceedings that may modify an original sentence. Such discretion is bounded only when Congress or the Constitution expressly limits the type of information a district court may consider in modifying a sentence… [T]he Concepcion Court concluded that nothing limits a district court’s discretion except when expressly set forth by Congress in a statute or by the Constitution. And in the case of the FSA, though the Court noted that “Congress is not shy about placing such limits where it deems them appropriate,” Congress had not expressly limited district courts to considering only certain factors there.

The Circuit noted that Congress “has never wholly excluded the consideration of any factors. Instead, it appropriately affords district courts the discretion to consider a combination of ‘any’ factors particular to the case at hand, limited only by the proscription that “rehabilitation alone was insufficient… [but] did not prohibit district courts from considering rehabilitation in conjunction with other factors.”

discretion220629

Congress adopted § 3582(c)(1)(A) due to the “need for a ‘safety valve’ with respect to situations in which a defendant’s circumstances had changed such that the length of continued incarceration no longer remained equitable,” the Court ruled: “It is within a district court’s sound discretion to hold that non-retroactive changes in the law, in conjunction with other factors such as extraordinary rehabilitation, sufficiently support a motion for compassionate release. To be clear, it is also within a district court’s sound discretion to hold, after fulsome review, that the same do not warrant compassionate release. For this court to hold otherwise would be to limit the discretion of the district courts, contrary to Supreme Court precedent and Congressional intent. We decline the United States’ invitation to impose such a limitation.”

United States v. Jean, Case No. 23-40463, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 17274 (5th Cir. July 15, 2024)

Concepcion v United States, 597 US 481 (2022)

– Thomas L. Root

Mountains of Evidence Trumps Molehills Every Time – Update for January 18, 2024

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

MORE IS BETTER

By now, everyone knows that for a federal prisoner to win a sentence reduction motion under 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(A) – known to all by the misleading but convenient shorthand “compassionate release” – he or she must show that extraordinary and compelling reasons exist for the motion (a list of what situations fit this bill may be found in the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s new § 1B1.13(b)) and that grant of the requested reduction is consistent – whatever that means – with the sentencing factors of 18 USC § 3553(a). Such factors include the history of the offense and the offender, the need for just punishment, protection of the public, deterrence, and other considerations.

founderingship240118Unsurprisingly, most federal prisoners seeking compassionate release focus on the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” standard, because it’s easier to quantify, and people generally like to focus more on the bad things currently happening to them than bad things they might have done in the past. Yet as many compassionate release motions founder on the shoals of § 3553(a) as ever die on the “extraordinary and compelling” hill.

While you sit back to drink in the beautiful symmetry of the prior paragraph’s mixed metaphor, consider the strange position that  “post-sentencing rehabilitative efforts” occupy in the compassionate release firmament. Post-sentencing rehabilitative efforts may not be the sole extraordinary and compelling reason for a sentence reduction, but they may be one of several. At the same time, post-sentencing rehabilitative efforts are relevant to the § 3553(a) sentencing factors: good behavior and completion of in-prison programming suggest that the prisoner will not pose a danger to the public and perhaps has already been justly punished so as to correct his or her errant ways.

So what kind of consideration must a district court give evidence of good conduct and programming? The 4th Circuit ruled almost five years ago in United States v. Martin that “where a movant presents substantial evidence of post-sentencing rehabilitative efforts, a district court must provide a more robust and detailed explanation in ruling on a motion for compassionate release.” Last week, the appellate court reminded everyone that for the Martin rule to apply, a movant should remember that more is better.

violent160620Historically, Angel Centeno-Morales had been anything but an angel. Before his current felon-in-possession conviction, he had been convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, battery, and several gun and drug offenses. In his current case, he sold meth and threatened people with his gun to discourage cooperation with law enforcement.

While he was locked up, Angel’s wife died of COVID, leaving their young son without a caregiver. He filed for compassionate release, arguing that the death of the primary caregiver for the minor child was an extraordinary and compelling reason for a compassionate release grant.

The district court agreed but denied the compassionate release motion nonetheless based on the § 3553(a) factors. The judge cited that Angel had distributed a lot of meth while on probation, used guns for intimidation and coercion, and had gotten two disciplinary infractions in his six years in prison. The district court held that Angel’s continued incarceration was “necessary to reflect the seriousness of his offenses, protect the public from further crimes, provide for just punishment, promote respect for the law, and provide deterrence.”

angels240118On appeal, Angel complained that the district court violated Martin by not providing enough detail supporting its denial, but the 4th Circuit disagreed. The Martin defendant presented “a mountain of new mitigating evidence that the sentencing court never evaluated,” the Circuit said. “What’s more, the movant in Martin was incarcerated for nearly two decades, became a respected tutor for other inmates, and exhibited such exemplary behavior that correctional staff moved her into a low-security facility.” But district courts must only “set forth enough to satisfy our court that it has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis” for its decision. “The district court does not owe every movant for compassionate release a ‘robust and detailed’ explanation on every argument about post-sentencing rehabilitative efforts,” the 4th said.

Angel presented no “mountain” of mitigating evidence that he had become an angel. “He completed just a few vocational courses and received two disciplinary infractions while incarcerated. Importantly, he remains classified as a ‘medium’ security inmate. This is not the kind of exceptional post-sentencing evidence for which Martin would require a ‘robust and detailed’ explanation,” the Circuit held.

United States v. Centeno-Morales, Case No. 22-6607, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 310 (4th Cir. January 5, 2024)

United States v. Martin, 916 F.3d 389 (4th Cir. 2019)

– Thomas L. Root

“Talk to Me,” Appellate Court Says – Update for March 7, 2019

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

YOU DON’T HAVE TO SAY MUCH, BUT YOU HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING…

explain190307Last year, the Supreme Court held in Chavez-Meza v. United States  that a judge ruling on an 18 USC 3582(c)(2) motion for reduction of sentence must say “enough to satisfy the appellate court that he has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising his own legal decision-making authority.” Last week, the 4th Circuit put some meat on those bones, remanding two 3582(c)(2) cases for a more reasoned explanation from the district judge.

A 3582(c)(2) motion is a post-conviction motion permitted in very limited circumstances, where the U.S. Sentencing Commission has reduced a Guidelines level for an offense, and made that reduction retroactive under USSG §1B1.10. In the past decade, the only such reductions have been several rewrites of the drug quantity tables, that brought reduced sentences to thousands of federal inmates.

Paulette Martin is doing a life sentence for a major drug crime. She sought a 2-level reduction, which would make her eligible for a 360-month sentence, citing her prison record of achievement that even the government conceded was “among the best that it has seen.” But the district court denied her motion, with an explanation that was little more than “a recitation of Martin’s original criminal behavior.”

In a different case, Luis Mangual has health issues as well as an excellent prison record. When he became eligible for a reduction, the government argued he should be sentenced at the top of his amended range, solely because he was sentenced at the top of his range at his initial sentencing some years ago. The judge followed the government’s suggestion, never mentioning Luis’s health or prison record.

whatsaid170918The 4th Circuit reversed both cases in a consolidated decision. It held that the sentencing judge’s terse explanation in denying Paulette “is not the standard… for sentence-reduction motions. The district court was content to memorialize Martin’s past transgressions without giving any weight to the multitude of redemptive measures that she has taken since she was initially sentenced to life in prison…” In Luis’s case, the Circuit panel said, “given that there is no reference to his new mitigation evidence, it is clear that the district court did not comply with the standards set forth in Chavez-Meza…”

The 4th said the district courts “must provide a rationale as to why two individuals who have placed themselves on a positive life trajectory, despite the challenges of a lengthy period of incarceration, should receive no relief for their rehabilitation.”

United States v. Martin, Case No. 17-6199, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 5620 (4th Cir., Feb, 26, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root