Bernie Madoff denied federal sentence reduction, but many others receive relief under § 3582(c)(1)(A) on same day

As reported in this Courthouse News Service report, a high-profile federal white-collar prisoners was denied compassionate release yesterday afternoon.  Here are the basics (and a link to the opinion):

Bernie Madoff’s terminal illness will not alter a federal judge’s ruling from just more than a decade ago: The man behind an “extraordinarily evil” Ponzi scheme will die in prison.

“When I sentenced Mr. Madoff in 2009, it was fully my intent that he live out the rest of his life in prison,” Judge Denny Chin, who dealt Madoff’s 150-year sentence before being appointed to the Second Circuit, wrote on Thursday. “His lawyers asked then for a sentence of 12 to 15 to 20 years, specifically with the hope that Mr. Madoff would live to see ‘the light of day.’ I was not persuaded; I did not believe that Mr. Madoff was deserving of that hope. Nothing has happened in the 11 years since to change my thinking."... 

Madoff’s attorney Brandon Sample said his client suffers from end-stage renal disease and other conditions that give him less than 18 months to live.  “Judge Chin recognized today that Madoff’s health is in serious decline and that he is, in fact, terminally ill,” Sample wrote. “Nonetheless, Judge Chin essentially found that because of the nature of Madoff’s crimes — Madoff is beyond redemption. We are disappointed with Judge Chin’s refusal to grant Madoff any compassion.”

The financial criminal will seek clemency from President Donald Trump. “We implore the president to personally consider Madoff’s rapidly declining health,” Sample added....

Letters opposing Madoff’s release showed that [negative victim] sentiment has not ebbed. Prosecutors said that more than 500 victims opposed his release, and only 20 wrote in support.  “I also agree that at age 81, with his declining physical condition, Mr. Madoff probably does not pose a danger to any person or the community,” Chin wrote. “But as the recent victim letters show, many people are still suffering from Mr. Madoff’s actions. I also believe that Mr. Madoff was never truly remorseful, and that he was only sorry that his life as he knew it was collapsing around him. Even at the end, he was trying to send more millions of his ill-gotten gains to family members, friends, and certain employees.”

Madoff is confined to the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, which — like many prisons throughout the country — is grappling with the coronavirus.  Neither Madoff’s request nor the ruling mentions the pandemic.

While this 16-page opinion from Judge Chin does not mention COVID, a whole lot of other compassionate release rulings handed down yesterday did.  I figured here it might be useful to highlight a number of the positive rulings from just the same day as this Madoff denial that already appear on Westlaw (and this weekend I will try to compile the more extended list of  positive § 3582(c)(1)(A) rulings from other days):

United States v. McKinney, No. 18-CR-6035L, 2020 WL 2958228 (WDNY June 4, 2020)

United States v. McCall, No. 2:18cr95-MHT, 2020 WL 2992197 (MD Ala. June 4, 2020)

United States v. Burke, No. 4:17-CR-3089, 2020 WL 3000330 (D Neb. June 4, 2020)

United States v. Green, No. TDC-10-0761, 2020 WL 2992855 (D Md. June 4, 2020)

United States v. Rivera-Amaro, No. 1:18-CR-00183 EAW, 2020 WL 3000392 (WDNY June 4, 2020)

I am pretty confident that this list of grants are not all of those that will show up on Westlaw eventually, and I am even more certain that there were a number of federal sentence reductions granted under § 3582(c)(1)(A) yesterday that will not ever show up on Westlaw.  In other words, while high-profile cases like Bernie Madoff will garner headlines, an ever-growing number of federal defendants are garnering sentence reductions thanks to the FIRST STEP Act.