More good coverage of the not-so-good (but still not-so-bad) realities of federal compassionate release realities

As noted here, last Thursday the US Sentencing Commission released some fascinating (and bare bones) data on compassionate release motions in 2020 in this short data report.  In this post, I flagged coverage by the Marshall Project lamenting that the Bureau of Prisons approved so very few compassionate release applications.  I have since seen three more press piece noting ugly stories in the data:

• From BuzzFeed News, "Incarcerated People Faced Huge Disparities Trying To Flee COVID-19 In Prisons"

• From Law360, "Fed. Prisoners See Limited Success In Pandemic Release Bids"

• From Louisville Courier Journal, "Federal judges in Kentucky stingy about freeing prisoners with COVID-19"

I am quite pleased to see a a series of articles based on the new USSC data that rightly assail the BOP for being so adverse to supporting sentence reduction 3582(c)(1)(a) motions and that highlights broad variations in how compassionate release is functioning in different federal judicial districts.  But, those persistent problems notwithstanding, I hope nobody loses sight of what the FIRST STEP Act accomplished by allowing federal courts to directly reduce sentences without awaiting a motion by the BOP.  As of this writing, BOP reports on this data page that nearly 3500 federal defendants have now received "Compassionate Releases / Reduction in Sentences" since the FIRST STEP Act became law. (For point of reference, that is more than the total number of prisoners in New Hampshire and Vermont combined.)  

I am eager for more details from the US Sentencing Commission about who is and is not receiving sentence reductions because there are surely some uneven (and likely ugly) patterns to be found in all the data.  But the one pattern that is clear and should be appreciated is that judges are regularly using their new powers to reduce sentences that are excessive.  As I suggested in this recent post, new legal rulings and all sorts of other developments can and should continue to provide sound reasons for federal judges to keep reconsidering extreme past federal sentences.  I hope they continue to do so, and I hope we do not lose sight of a beautiful compassionate release forest even when we notice a some ugly trees.

A few of many prior related posts:

• US Sentencing Commission releases fascinating (and bare bones) "Compassionate Release Data Report" 
• Notable data on BOP resistance to compassionate release requests from federal prisoners
• "How Compassionate? Political Appointments and District Court Judge Responses to Compassionate Release during COVID-19" 
• Tangible example of continuing big sentence reductions in COVID era thanks to the FIRST STEP Act 
• Spotlighting remarkable (but still cursory) data on "compassionate release" after FIRST STEP Act 
• Notable new review and accounting of COVID and federal compassionate release results 
• Another dive into the ugly BOP realities of federal compassionate release during the pandemic