Gwen Levi, face of federal home confinement cohort at risk of prison return, granted compassionate release

In prior posts (some linked below), I have discussed the Office of Legal Counsel memo which interprets federal law to require that certain persons transferred to home confinement pursuant to the CARES Act be returned to federal prison when the pandemic ends.  In this recent post, I noted one person at risk of serving many more years in prison after success on home confinement, Gwen Levi, who was getting particular attention because she had already been re-incarcerated on the basis of a seemingly minor technical violation.

I expressed hope in that post that she might succeed with sentence reduction motions under the (so-called compassionate release) statutory provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).  I am now happy to be able report that she has prevailed on such a motion, as detailed in this USA Today article headlined "Woman who was arrested after missing officials' phone call while in computer class is headed home":

An elderly woman who was recently arrested after she missed phone calls from officials while attending a computer class — a possible violation of her home detention — is headed back home following a federal judge's decision to grant her request for compassionate release.

In a four-page ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Deborah C. Chasanow said "it would do little" to force Gwen Levi – a 76-year-old who's in remission from lung cancer and whom the Justice Department had deemed nonviolent – to serve the entirety of her sentence. "During her incarceration, she took many courses, worked, and completed drug education," Chasanow wrote, noting Levi's age, medical conditions and lack of major disciplinary problems.

Levi is among the more than 24,000 federal prisoners who, under the Trump administration, were allowed to serve their sentence through home detention to slow the spread of COVID-19 behind bars. But a Justice Department memo issued in the final days of the Trump administration said inmates whose sentences will extend beyond the pandemic must be brought back to prison. That included Levi, who has four years left to serve, and about 4,000 other prisoners, some of whom have secured jobs and gone back to school....

More recently, Levi attracted media attention after a trip to a computer class led to her arrest. Levi believed she had been approved to go to the class, her attorney said. She had turned her phone off, unaware that officials at her halfway house would be calling her several times. Levi was arrested four days later. A Bureau of Prisons report called the incident an "escape."

Levi was serving more than 30 years for drug conspiracy charges. Her sentence was reduced to 24 years as part of the First Step Act, a Trump-era criminal justice bill that shortened punishments for nonviolent drug crimes. Before her arrest last month, Levi had been on home confinement for 13 months.

In her ruling granting the request for compassionate release, Chasanow said Levi "has done well on home confinement," notwithstanding the incident that led to her arrest.

In a statement following Chasanow's decision, Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said: "Sending her back to prison for going to a computer class was shameful. She deserves to be home," Ring said. "But the fight is far from over. It's time for the Biden administration to ensure that the 4,000 people on home confinement get to stay home with their families, too."

Advocacy groups have been urging the Justice Department to rescind the Trump-era legal memo, but the administration does not believe the issue is urgent. The Justice Department said in May that inmates with years left to serve are not likely to be sent back to prison anytime soon because the public health crisis is expected to last for the rest of the year.

Some prior recent related posts:

• Notable OLC opinion on "Home Confinement of Federal Prisoners After the COVID-19 Emergency" 
• Spotlighting effectiveness of home confinement under CARES Act and concerns about OLC memo disruption
• Effective review of (just some) issues surrounding home confinement for the Biden Justice Department
• FAMM urges AG Garland to prevent those on home confinement during pandemic from being returning to federal prison 
• Why aren't there much stronger calls for CONGRESS to fix post-pandemic home confinement problems?