Sentencing Law and Policy

GAO releases big report concluding "Bureau of Prisons Should Improve Efforts to Implement its Risk and Needs Assessment System"

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released this big new Report to Congressional Committees fully titled "Federal Prisons: Bureau of Prisons Should Improve Efforts to Implement its Risk and Needs Assessment System."  The full report runs over 100 pages, but it starts with "Highlights" that include this text:

Why GAO Did This Study

Approximately 45 percent of people released from a federal prison are rearrested or return within 3 years of their release.  The First Step Act included certain requirements for DOJ and BOP aimed to reduce recidivism, including requiring the development of a system to assess the recidivism risk and needs of incarcerated people.  It also required BOP to provide incarcerated people with programs and activities to address their needs and if eligible, earn time credits.

The First Step Act required GAO to assess the DOJ and BOP’s implementation of certain requirements.  This report addresses the extent to which DOJ and BOP implemented certain First Step Act requirements related to the (1) risk and needs assessment system, (2) identification and evaluation of programs and activities, and (3) application of time credits.

GAO reviewed legislation and DOJ and BOP documents; analyzed 2022 BOP data; and interviewed DOJ and BOP headquarters officials and BOP’s employee union.  GAO also conducted non-generalizable interviews with officials from four BOP regional offices facilities, selected to ensure a mix of different facility characteristics.

What GAO Found

Since the enactment of the First Step Act of 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) developed a risk assessment tool to measure an incarcerated person’s risk of recidivism.  In addition, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) modified its existing needs assessment system to identify incarcerated people’s needs, that if addressed may reduce their recidivism risk. However, BOP does not have readily-available, complete, and accurate data to determine if assessments were conducted within required First Step Act and internal timeframes. As of October 2022, BOP plans to implement monitoring efforts to assess First Step Act requirements, but has not determined if these efforts will measure whether assessments are completed on time.  Without such data and monitoring, BOP is not in a position to determine if staff complete assessments on time, which are necessary for earning First Step Act time credits.  These time credits may allow incarcerated people to reduce the amount of time they spend in a BOP facility.

BOP created a plan to evaluate its evidence-based programs, as required by the First Step Act.  However, the plan did not include quantifiable goals that align with certain First Step Act requirements, or have clear milestone dates.  By including such elements in its plan, BOP will be better positioned to ensure its evaluations are conducted in a timely manner, and align with the First Step Act.  BOP has some data on who participates in its programs and activities, but does not have a mechanism to monitor if it offers a sufficient amount. Without such a mechanism, BOP cannot ensure it is meeting the incarcerated population’s needs.  Further, while BOP offers unstructured productive activities for which incarcerated people may earn time credits, BOP has not documented a complete list or monitored them.  Without doing so, BOP cannot ensure it provides transparent information.

BOP’s procedure for applying time credits has evolved over time.  Initially, BOP did not have data necessary to track time credits and developed an interim approach in January 2022.  Subsequently, BOP implemented an automated-calculation application for time credits that took into account factors the interim procedure did not.  As a result, some incarcerated people may have had their time credits reduced.  In November 2022, BOP issued its First Step Act Time Credits program statement, with new procedures.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making eight recommendations for BOP to improve its implementation of the First Step Act, including collecting data, ensuring its evaluation plan has goals and milestones, having monitoring mechanisms, and tracking unstructured productive activities. BOP concurred with six recommendations, but did not concur with two.  GAO continues to believe these are valid.

Highlighting the continuing challenges of calculating FIRST STEP Act earned time credits

At Forbes, Walter Pavlo has this new piece, headlined "The Bureau Of Prisons Evolving Calculation Of First Step Act," on the continuing challenges of applying a key aspect of prison reform part of the big federal criminal justice reform bill passed back in 2018.  I recommend the piece in full, and here are excerpts:

Since January 2022, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has been trying to determine how to calculate how the First Step Act (FSA), a law signed by President Donald Trump in December 2018.  As we enter March 2023, there still is no clear direction on the calculation and the frustration has grown among prisoners and families who are anxiously waiting on a determination of when a federal prison term will end....

The premise of FSA is to reward federal prisoners’ participation in meaningful classes meant to return a better citizen to society and, hopefully, reduce the chances of them returning to prison.... The BOP initially calculated the FSA credits manually beginning in January 2022 when the Federal Register published the Final Rule on FSA. The initial BOP calculations for minimum level offenders with minimum chances of recidivism was that 15 days per month started from the beginning of the prison term, something more generous than what was even stated in the FSA law. Prisoners across the country were released based on this calculation.  This initial and interim manual calculation was used through August 2022 when the BOP rolled out a new auto-calculator.  That auto-calculator had a major interpretation that was not a part of FSA either, which stopped all credits from being earned once the prisoner was 18 months from release. This was particularly hard on those prisoners with shorter sentences.

As December 2022 came to a close, the BOP’s auto-calculator interpretation came under scrutiny from U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley, the law’s biggest proponents. Suddenly, the BOP changed course and another calculation was promised and it landed with yet another interpretation that is limiting the amount of credits prisoners can earn.

The BOP is now in its third iteration of FSA calculation and this is just as confusing as its first.  Now the BOP is stating that prisoners can only earn 10 credits per month for the first year of incarceration....

Prisoners across the country are taking their cases to federal court asking for relief and for federal judges to get involved in determining the duration of the prison sentence.  In a case in the District of Maryland (Sreedhar Potarazu v BOP, Case No. 1:22-cv-01334) the case manager for the plaintiff gave his own interpretation of how credits were applied by the BOP, giving Mr. Potarazu 10 credits per month for nearly 3 years of his sentence.  There was no basis for the calculation which did not cite specific policy on which the calculation was based, providing even more confusion among both prisoners and staff across the BOP.  Previously, the BOP has used declarations, which were similarly not based on a specific policy, from executives at its Central Office.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the FSA will be finally determined by a federal court decision and not by what should be a simple interpretation of the law by the BOP. However, many prisoners who await the outcome from court decisions will have spent weeks or months in prison unnecessarily.

Former BOP director talks up need for second step to follow up FIRST STEP Act

Hugh Hurwitz, who served as Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons from May 2018 to August 2019, has this notable new Hill commentary headlined "First Step Act was only half the job; now a ‘Second Step’ is needed." It is worth reading in full, and here are  excerpts:

The First Step Act (FSA) was a landmark achievement in the area of criminal justice reform.  It came at a time of partisan politics and a divided Congress and was the only significant bi-partisan legislation passed during the Trump administration....  I had a unique viewpoint at this time: I was Acting Director of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) during the negotiations and ultimate passage of the FSA....  But how successful is it?  I argue it was a small start, hopefully, on the way to something bigger.

The FSA had two primary goals: 1) to reduce the overcrowded prison population in the BOP and 2) to provide incentives for people in prison to take recidivism reducing programs which will increase the likelihood that they will succeed upon their release and not return to prison.  In my opinion, the FSA succeeded wildly in number 1, and failed miserably in number 2.  So, in short, yes, we definitely need something bigger: a second step.

While up-to-date data has not been made available, it appears that somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people have already been released early under the FSA, with thousands more in the queue.  BOP is still calculating how people earn time credits, and they continue to release more in batches.  Based on those numbers alone, it is hard to argue that the FSA was not successful in reducing the prison population.

The primary incentive offered under the FSA is time credits for completion of recidivation reducing programs. Application of these time credits will allow some people to complete their sentence early and transfer to supervised release, and others to transfer early to halfway houses or home confinement.  The problem with the FSA is that while it incentivizes people to take recidivism reducing programs, the only people eligible for the coveted time credits are those already deemed to be minimum- or low-risk for recidivating.  Said another way, only people assessed as minimum- and low-risk for recidivism are eligible to earn time credits leading to early release. But those are not the people we should be incentivizing to take recidivism reducing programs.  The ones who truly need these programs are those deemed to be of medium or high risk of recidivating.  Aren’t those the people we should be focusing on?  But the FSA does not allow these people to earn time credits....

Let me be clear: I am not saying the FSA is a bad law.  On the contrary, it has resulted in increased program opportunities and other changes to our federal prison system, and it has reduced the number of people in federal prisons.  What I am saying is that the need for a Second Step is great, as people deemed medium or high risk of recidivating are released without the benefit of critical recidivism reducing programs.

About 95 percent of the people currently in our nation’s prisons will be released to our communities. They will be our neighbors.  Isn’t it imperative that we do all we can to ensure that upon release they have the skills, tools, and resources to be productive, law-abiding members of society?  We need Congress to act now, in another bi-partisan effort, to pass laws that will ensure everyone incarcerated today is incentivized and given access to programs that will help reduce their recidivism risk.

SCOTUS grants certiorari to review reach of FIRST STEP Act's expansion of statutory safety valve

As predicted in this post a couple days ago, sentencing fans now get to turn their attention to the Supreme Court for the next chapter of a fascinating FIRST STEP Act statutory interpretation issue.  Specifically, in this morning's SCOTUS order list, one of the two cases receiving certiorari grants was Pulsifer v. United States.  Here is the (lengthy) question presented as set forth in the defendant's cert petition:

The “safety valve” provision of the federal sentencing statute requires a district court to ignore any statutory mandatory minimum and instead follow the Sentencing Guidelines if a defendant was convicted of certain nonviolent drug crimes and can meet five sets of criteria.  See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1)–(5).  Congress amended the first set of criteria, in § 3553(f)(1), in the First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 402, 132 Stat. 5194, 5221, broad criminal justice and sentencing reform legislation designed to provide a second chance for nonviolent offenders. A defendant satisfies § 3553(f)(1), as amended, if he “does not have — (A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; (B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; and (C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) (emphasis added).

The question presented is whether the “and” in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) means “and,” so that a defendant satisfies the provision so long as he does not have (A) more than 4 criminal history points, (B) a 3-point offense, and (C) a 2-point offense (as the Ninth Circuit holds), or whether the “and” means “or,” so that a defendant satisfies the provision so long as he does not have (A) more than 4 criminal history points, (B) a 3-point offense, or (C) a 2-point violent offense (as the Seventh and Eighth Circuits hold).

Notably, as regular readers know, the circuit split on this issue has deepened to include two more circuits on both sides of the debate.  Federal criminal justice practitioners and sentencing fans certainly will be following this case closely because its resolution will impact thousands of drug defendants sentenced in federal courts every year. But statutory construction gurus (and isn't that everyone) will also surely be interest in the debates this case can present about textualism, plain meaning and the rule of lenity. Stay tuned.

Split over reading of the FIRST-STEP-amended safety valve provision appears ready for SCOTUS review

In this post a couple of days ago, which discussed the latest notable circuit opinion interpreting the language Congress used in the FIRST STEP Act to expand the statutory safety valve enabling more federal drug defendants to be sentenced below mandatory minimum terms, I suggested it was only a matter of time before SCOTUS takes up the statutory interpretation dispute that has deeply divided lower courts.  And this new Relist Watch post by John Elwood at SCOTUSblog suggest it may actually be only a matter of days before cert is granted on this issue:

The Supreme Court will meet this Friday to consider whether to grant review in a group of around 95 petitions and motions. They will be considering eight cases for the second time....

Under the “safety-valve” provision of federal sentencing law, a defendant convicted of certain nonviolent drug crimes can obtain relief from statutory mandatory minimum sentences if, among other things, her criminal history satisfies criteria in 18 U.S.C § 3553(f)(1): she “does not have — (A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; (B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; and (C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines.”

Pulsifer v. United States and Palomares v. United States present the question of how that provision should be read: whether a defendant is ineligible for relief from the mandatory minimum if her criminal history runs afoul of any one of the disqualifying criteria in subsections (A), (B), or (C), or is ineligible only if her criminal history runs afoul of all three disqualifying criteria, subsections (A), (B), and (C).  The government agrees that the circuits are divided and review is warranted, and recommends that the court take Pulsifer, which it says is the better vehicle.  Counsel for Palomares and Pulsifer trade barbs in their reply briefs about which is the better vehicle.  Probably at least one will get the grant.

I share the view that, if the Justice Department is advocating for review, we ought to expect a grant on one of these cases perhaps as early as Monday.  My understanding is that a grant now would set the case up for Fall 2023 argument and likely no decision from SCOTUS until early 2024. 

Fourth Circuit panel joins minority of circuits giving broad reading to FIRST-STEP-amended safety valve provision

I have noted in a handful of prior posts some of the notable circuit rulings concerning the complicated language that Congress used in the FIRST STEP Act to expand the statutory safety valve enabling more federal drug defendants to benefit from its authorization for below mandatory-minimum sentences.  A helpful reader made sure I did not miss the latest opinion on this topic, this one coming from a Fourth Circuit panel in US v. Jones, No. 21-4605 (4th Cir. Feb 21, 2023) (available here).  Here is how the opinion starts and concludes:

The safety valve provision found in the First Step Act allows a district court to impose a sentence without regard to a mandatory minimum if certain criteria are met.  Relevant here, the court must find that the defendant “does not have . . . more than 4 criminal history points, . . . a prior 3-point offense, . . . and a prior 2-point violent offense” (the “criminal history characteristics”). 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) (emphasis added).  Cassity Jones has more than four criminal history points but does not have a prior three-point offense or two-point violent offense.  The district court concluded that a defendant must have all three criminal history characteristics to be ineligible for relief and applied the safety valve in sentencing Jones.  The sole issue on appeal is whether the word “and” in § 3553(f)(1) connecting the criminal history characteristics applies conjunctively or disjunctively.  We conclude that “and” is conjunctive and affirm the district court’s decision....

Ultimately, whether or not this is a prudent policy choice is not for the judiciary to decide: that determination lies solely with the legislative branch.  And “[t]he [G]overnment’s request that we rewrite § 3553(f)(1)’s ‘and’ into an ‘or’ based on the absurdity canon is simply a request for a swap of policy preferences.” Lopez, 998 F.3d at 440.  We cannot “rewrite Congress’s clear and unambiguous text” simply because the Government believes it is better policy for the safety valve to apply to fewer defendants. Id. “The remedy for any dissatisfaction with the results in particular cases lies with Congress and not with this Court.” Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S. 564, 576 (1982); see also id. (“Congress may amend the statute; we may not.” (citations omitted)).

Accordingly, we are persuaded that the plain text of § 3553(f)(1) requires a sentencing court to find that a defendant has all three of the listed criminal history characteristics before excluding a defendant from safety valve eligibility.

Helpfully, a footnote early in the opinion details the circuit split over whether "and" means "and" or "and" means "or" in the context of this FIRST STEP Act revision of the application statute:

The circuits are split on this issue.  Compare United States v. Garcon, 54 F.4th 1274 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc) (concluding that only a defendant with all three criminal history characteristics is ineligible under § 3553(f)(1)), and United States v. Lopez, 998 F.3d 431 (9th Cir. 2021) (same), with United States v. Palomares, 52 F.4th 640 (5th Cir. 2022) (concluding that having any one of the criminal history characteristics renders a defendant ineligible under § 3553(f)(1)), United States v. Pace, 48 F.4th 741 (7th Cir. 2022) (same), United States v. Pulsifer, 39 F.4th 1018 (8th Cir. 2022) (same), and United States v. Haynes, 55 F.4th 1075 (6th Cir. 2022) (same). We find the Eleventh and Ninth Circuits’ decisions convincing and join those circuits.

This split make plain that it is only a matter of time before SCOTUS takes up this matter. And I would hope that SCOTUS would move quickly: according to US Sentencing Commission data, thousands of federal drug defendants each year are being subject to different laws and treated differently at sentencing based on this statutory conflict.

A glass-half-empty look at federal compassionate release data since FIRST STEP Act

Extrapolating based on the latest data from the US Sentencing Commission, since passage of the FIRST STEP Act in December 2018, nearly 5000 persons have secured a reduced term of imprisonment for "extraordinary and compelling reasons" pursuant to so-called "compassionate release" motions under 3582(c)(1)(A).  This number, which amounts to an average of roughly 100 sentence reduction grants per month, is a 50-times increase from the average of two such reductions per month in the year before the FIRST STEP Act made it possible for prisoners to get their motions directly to courts.  (COVID is a big part of this story: USSC data show many hundreds of grants each month during the second half of 2020 and first part of 2021; grants have average closer to 50 per month through 2022.)

But while sentence reductions grants are much more common since passage of the FIRST STEP Act, they are still not common.  After all, roughly 400,000 persons have served federal prison sentences over the last five years, so only just over 1% of all federal prisoners have secured relief under 3582(c)(1)(A).  And this new NPR piece, headlined "Frail people are left to die in prison as judges fail to act on a law to free them," stresses data detailing how many are not securing relief.  Here are excerpts:

[D]ata from the U.S. Sentencing Commission shows judges rejected more than 80% of compassionate release requests filed from October 2019 through September 2022. Judges made rulings without guidance from the sentencing commission, an independent agency that develops sentencing policies for the courts.

The commission was delayed for more than three years because Congress did not confirm Trump's nominees and President Joe Biden's appointees were not confirmed until August.  As a result, academic researchers, attorneys, and advocates for prison reform said the law has been applied unevenly across the country. 

Later this week, the federal sentencing commission is poised to hold an open meeting in Washington, D.C. to discuss the problem. They'll be reviewing newly proposed guidelines that include, among other things, a provision that would give consideration to people housed in a correctional facility who are at risk from an infectious disease or public health emergency....

The First Step Act brought fresh attention to compassionate release, which had rarely been used in the decades after it was authorized by Congress in the 1980s.  The new law allowed people in prison to file motions for compassionate release directly with federal courts.  Before, only the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons could petition the court on behalf of a sick prisoner, which rarely happened....

The number of applications for compassionate release began soaring in March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared a pandemic emergency.  Even as COVID devastated prisons, judges repeatedly denied most requests....  Data suggests decisions in federal courts varied widely by geography.  For example, the 2nd Circuit (Connecticut, New York, and Vermont) granted 27% of requests, compared with about 16% nationally.  The 5th Circuit (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) approved about 10 %. Judges in the 11th Circuit (Alabama, Florida, and Georgia) approved roughly 11% of requests. In one Alabama district, only six of 141 motions were granted — or about 4% — the sentencing commission data shows....

Sentencing commission officials did not make leaders available to answer questions about whether a lack of guidance from the panel kept sick and dying people behind bars.  The new sentencing commission chair, Carlton Reeves, said during a public hearing in October that setting new guidelines for compassionate release is a top priority.

Interestingly this NPR piece, though seemingly about denials of sentence reductions, focuses on a drug offender with stage 4 cancer who did secure compassionate release last year.  I cannot help but wonder if the reporter was not quite able to find a compelling case in which a sentence reduction was denied for a "frail [person] left to die in prison," though I am sure there are such cases.

New CRS explores "When Is a Mandatory Minimum Sentence Not Mandatory Under the First Step Act?"

The Congressional Research Service has this notable new "Legal Sidebar" discussing how the statutory "safety valve" allowing sentences below federal mandatory minimum terms operate.  The four-page document highlights the new legal debates resulting from FIRST STEP Act reforms, and here are excerpts:

Congress created the safety valve for certain drug offenses carrying mandatory minimum penalties after becoming concerned that the mandatory minimums could result in equally severe penalties for both more and less culpable offenders.  The Commission “worked directly with Congress to enact new legislation that would address the impact of mandatory minimum penalties on low-level drug-trafficking offenders.”  These efforts culminated in the first safety valve, which was introduced as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.  Under this statute, to be eligible for the safety valve, a federal judge could impose a sentence below a drug-related mandatory minimum if the federal defendant satisfied five criteria, including not having “more than one criminal history point, as determined under the Sentencing Guidelines.”... The Commission adopted a corresponding Sentencing Guideline provision, allowing for a two-level reduction in the Guidelines offense level based on the same 1994 criteria.

In 2011, the Commission reported to Congress that the safety valve was underinclusive.  The Commission therefore urged Congress to expand the safety valve to encompass “certain non-violent [drug] offenders who receive two, or perhaps three, criminal history points under the [G]uidelines” and “low-level, nonviolent offenders convicted of other offenses carrying mandatory minimum penalties.”...

The First Step Act addressed mandatory minimums in multiple ways.  In addition to reducing the mandatory minimum penalties for certain drug-trafficking offenses, the act expanded eligibility for safety-valve relief to defendants with more significant criminal histories.  Whereas federal defendants with one or zero criminal history points under the Sentencing Guidelines could receive relief under the prior law, the act made drug offenders with minor criminal records eligible for the safety valve provision....

Due to the current judicial divide over the scope of the First Step Act’s safety valve, whether a defendant may receive relief from a mandatory minimum sentence under the act may depend upon the happenstance of geography: a defendant may be disqualified in one circuit when that same defendant might be eligible for relief in a different circuit.  Given that sentencing disparities may appear at odds with the stated statutory policy of promoting consistency and uniformity in federal sentencing outcomes, Congress may wish to consider amending the safety valve to clarify whether the criminal history criteria are disjunctive or conjunctive.

In addition, the Sentencing Commission is exploring revisions to the Sentencing Guideline provision that is analogous to the act’s safety valve: the Commission identified two options under consideration.  One option would not make any change to the Guidelines and thus would permit courts to interpret the Guideline disjunctively or conjunctively.  A second option would adopt the disjunctive approach.  Regardless of which option the Commission approves, Congress always has the opportunity to review and revise any amendments to the Guidelines.

Notable new grant of sentence reduction for California medical marijuana operator given nearly 22 years in federal prison back in 2008

I was pleased to learn late last night about a notable new ruling out of a federal district court in US  v. Scarmazzo, No. 1:06-cr-000342 DAD (E.D. Ca. Feb 2, 2023) (available for download below).  The case involves Luke Scarmazzo, a California medical marijuana dispensary operator who was federally prosecuted in the mid-2000s and was sentenced to 262 months in federal prison back in 2008.  As detailed in the 29-page opinion posted below, the federal district judge decision to reduce his sentence to time served (already more than 14 years).  The who sentence merits a full read for a host of reasons, and here are just a few key concluding passages: 

Having considered the parties’ briefing and reviewed the relevant case law, the undersigned’s current view is as follows.  This court clearly has the authority to reduce a mandatory minimum sentence in granting compassionate release.  Halvon 26 F.4th at 570. However, where, as here, the minimum mandatory sentence is still authorized by Congressionally enacted federal law that has not been subsequently subject to even non-retroactive amendment, the district court should not grant compassionate release based solely upon its conclusion that the originally imposed mandatory minimum sentence was unduly harsh.  See Thacker, 4 F.4th 569, 574. Nonetheless, this court has broad discretion to consider the harshness of the sentence in light of the current landscape in combination with other factors in determining whether extraordinary and compelling circumstances warrant the granting of compassionate release in a given case. Concepcion, 142 S. Ct. at 2396; Chen, 48 F.4th at 1095; Aruda, 993 F.3d at 802; Jones, 980 F.3d at 1111....

When considering the unique confluence of all of these circumstances — changes in the legal landscape with respect to federal enforcement of laws relating to distribution of marijuana in California; the significant disparity in the sentence actually served by co-defendant Montes and the 14+ years already served in prison by defendant Scarmazzo; defendant’s good behavior, meaningful employment, volunteer work, pursuit of educational opportunities during his imprisonment; defendant’s solid release plans including job offers and family support; the lack of danger posed to the community were he to be released; and defendant Scarmazzo’s difficult family circumstances that have developed during his imprisonment — the court is persuaded that the granting of the requested relief is appropriate at this point and is supported by both extraordinary and compelling circumstances and consideration of the sentencing factors set forth at 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

Download CR opinion in Scarmazzo case

Gearing up for a new federal sentencing year that might finally bring some new guideline amendments

Branch by branch, there are a lot of federal sentencing stories to watch as we start a new year.  The last Congress made (halting) progress on some statutory sentencing reforms, but nothing major made it all the way to the President's desk.  With the House of Representatives in GOP control in the new Congress, legislative dynamics have changed in ways that might diminish the prospects for any big reforms in 2023.  But with murder rates ticking down a bit in 2022 and crime narratives seemingly not having a huge midterm poitical impact, perhaps some modest consgressional reform could still happen in the coming year.

On the executive front, I will be watching closely for early impacts of Attorney General Garland's new charging and sentencing memos (basics here).  It will be particular interesting to see the effect of AG Garland's instructions to federal prosecutors to "promote the equivalent treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses."  And, with Prez Biden having used his clemency powers a few times in 2022 (with grants in April, October and December), maybe executive grace as well as prosecutorial discretion will continue to impact federal sentencing realities in the coming year.

The judicial branch is the arena in which I am expecting the most action in this new year.  Focusing the courts, we may see in the coming weeks if the Supreme Court is finally ready to address acquitted conduct sentencing enhancments (details here).  Other notable sentencing issues may also make their way to the SCOTUS docket because circuits are split on important topics like deference to the guidelines and application of a key part of the FIRST STEP Act.  Other notable sentencing issues are sure to keep gurgling in district and circuit courts in the year ahead.

But I can most confidently predict judicial branch sentencing action in 2023 because the US Sentencing Commission, which is located in that branch, is finally now fully loaded and is hard at work on potential guidelines reforms.  The Commission has now officially announced that it will have a public meeting on January 12, 2023 with an agenda to include "Possible Vote to Publish Proposed Guideline Amendments and Issues for Comment."  Though we should not expect the USSC to advance amendments on all the topics mentioned in its ambitious list of priorities, we are sure to get some notable and impactful proposals to start the year from the Commission.

Notably, though the USSC's work is primarily focused on the sentencing guidelines, the agency can have real impact on other aspects of the justice system.  This new Forbes article by Walter Palvo, headlined "A Federal Public Defender Challenges U.S. Sentencing Commission To Help Fix The Bureau Of Prisons," highlights Steve Sady's new article in the Federal Sentencing Reporter urging the USSC to "make recommendations regarding the Bureau of Prisons’ execution of Guidelines sentences."  Here is an excerpt from the Forbes piece:

I recently spoke to Stephen Sady, Chief Deputy Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon about a paper he wrote that was critical of the BOP but stated that the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) could encourage the BOP to balance long guideline sentences by implementing ameliorative statutes that reduce actual prison time. As Sady told me, “The BOP has failed to adequately implement critical legislation to improve the conditions of people in prison.”

As Sady points out, even as Congress has repeatedly provided options and directives that would reduce the time defendants spend in prison, the BOP has failed to implement the full scope of the available authority, resulting in expensive and pointless over-incarceration. The most important of these can be put into six categories, 1) Increase the availability of community corrections commensurate with repeated statutory directives for greater use of residential reentry centers and home confinement (18 U.S.C. § 3624(c)), 2) Expand eligibility and availability of sentence reductions under Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), 3) Eliminate computation rules that create longer sentences, 4) Implement broader statutory and guideline standards to file compassionate release motions any time extraordinary and compelling reasons exist, 5) Revive the boot camp program to provide nonviolent offenders sentence reductions and expanded community corrections and 6) Fully implement the First Step Act’s earned time credit program (18 U.S.C. §§ 3632(d) and 3624(g)). No new legislation would be required for any of these reforms. “It’s a pragmatic approach,” Sady said, “that uses the laws already in place to do what the BOP should already be doing. This is not a stretch.”

Interesting times as we start a new year.

Some early commentary on notable end-of-year federal criminal justice reform developments

I hope and expect that the new charging and sentencing memos issued by AG Garland (basics here), as well as the failure of the out-going Congress to pass any significant criminal justice reforms, will garner extended attention and analysis in the weeks and months ahead.  Usefully, I have already seen some first-cut accountings from a variety of sources:

From Filter, "The Limits of AG’s Guidelines Against Crack-Powder Sentencing Disparity"

From LISA-Legalinfo, "Blue Christmas for Criminal Justice Reforms"

From MSNBC, "Racist war on drugs is the real winner of Congress’s massive spending bill"

From Reason, "The Failure To Enact Marijuana Banking and Crack Sentencing Reforms Is a Window on Congressional Dysfunction"

From San Diego Union-Tribune, "Creating different punishments for crack and powder cocaine never made sense, unscientific"

Looking forward, the practical impact of AG Garland's charging and sentencing memos, the continued implementation of the FIRST STEP Act, and especially the coming work of the newly, fully-staffed U.S. Sentencing Commission will be topics to watch closely in the weeks and months ahead.  So, I am tentatively hopeful that the lack of much lasting federal criminal justice reform in 2022 is just a precursor to a big 2023 ahead.

En banc Sixth Circuit clings to anti-textual limits on what factors can be consider in § 3582(c)(1)(a) motions

The Supreme Court's ruling in Concepcion v. US, No. 20-1650 (S. Ct. June 27, 2022) (available here), seemed to be a fairly clear direction to circuit court that it was not their job to make up non-textual limits to how district courts exercised sentencing discretion.  Here are just some of the key quotes, first discussed in this post, from the Supreme Court's opinion in Concepcion: 

It is only when Congress or the Constitution limits the scope of information that a district court may consider in deciding whether, and to what extent, to modify a sentence, that a district court’s discretion to consider information is restrained....

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....

The only limitations on a court’s discretion to consider any relevant materials at an initial sentencing or in modifying that sentence are those set forth by Congress in a statute or by the Constitution....

Because Concepcion seemingly makes plain that the "only limitation" on "the type of information a district court may consider in modifying a sentence" are those limits in the Constitution or that Congress has expressly set forth, motions for sentence reductions pursuant to § 3582(c)(1)(a) -- so-called compassionate release motions -- could certainly include consideration as a general matter all sorts of information about changes in laws and well as changes in fact that might justify a sentence reduction.  After all, Congress has only expressly provided in statutory text that one factor could not alone serve as the basis for sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(1)(a):  "Rehabilitation of the defendant alone shall not be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason." 28 USC § 994(t).

But, today the en banc Sixth Circuit has decided to double-down on its anti-textual approach to § 3582(c)(1)(a) by stating another categorical limit on what can be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason under 3582 in US v. McCall, No. 21-3400 (6th Cir. Dec 22, 2022) (available here).  The majority opinion in the split en banc ruling start and ends this way: 

David McCall, a federal prisoner with a long drug-dealing career, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge involving heroin possession and distribution in 2015.  Five years into his 235-month sentence, McCall moved for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1).  Although he cited several “extraordinary and compelling reasons” justifying a sentence reduction under that statute, the heart of his motion rested on our opinion in Havis.  Invoking that opinion, McCall argued that if he were sentenced today, he would receive a shorter sentence than he received in 2015.  The district court denied his motion, reasoning that a nonretroactive change in sentencing law could not amount to an “extraordinary and compelling” reason for a sentence reduction. We agree and affirm....

Nonretroactive legal developments do not factor into the extraordinary and compelling analysis. Full stop.

As I noted when discussing a prior Sixth Circuit panel ruling to this effect, there is absolutely nothing in the text of § 3582(c)(1)(a) that supports the contention that nonretroactive legal developments cannot ever factor into or generally constitute "extraordinary and compelling reasons" to allow a sentence reduction, either alone or in combination with other factors.  The majority here, presumably based on its own sense of policy, is seemingly eager to invent an extra-textual categorical limitation on the authority Congress gave to district courts to reduce sentences.  In other words, this is judicial lawmaking that is flagrantly disregarding both the statutory text enacted by Congress and the instructions of the Supreme Court in Concepcion.  Full Stop.

A notable call for next steps on federal sentencing reform (with a too modest accounting of FIRST STEP's impact)

Doug Collins has this notable new commentary at Fox News under the headline "First Step Act showed Republicans and Democrats can work together to make justice system more just."  I would recommend the full piece, and here are excerpts:

Four years ago this week, just before Christmas, both parties came together for a holiday miracle: passing the First Step Act, the most significant change to our justice system in decades.  It was a win for Republicans and Democrats in Congress; a win for then-President Donald Trump; and, more importantly, a win for thousands of American families whose lives were changed for the better through a series of prison and sentencing reforms that were fair, safe, and spoke to American values.

To date, over 7,500 folks have been able to regain their lives after the passage of the First Step Act.  These are Americans who made mistakes years ago, received unduly harsh penalties that sent them to prison for decades, and have now regained their freedom.  This year, they get to spend Christmas at home with their families thanks to this legislation.

It goes to show that when it comes to criminal justice reform, major progress is more than possible; I’ve witnessed it firsthand.  One of my proudest moments in Congress was seeing that bipartisan bill, which I worked across the aisle to put together with now-Minority Leader-elect Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, get signed into law at Trump’s desk.  It was a reminder of how much we can get done, regardless of party, on the biggest issues of the day....

As a Christian, I firmly believe that we must support redemption for those who have atoned.  The incredible, redemptive effect that passing bills like the First Step Act have across our country cannot be ignored.  And as a conservative, I believe in cutting unnecessary government waste and trimming out-of-control spending, including within our justice system.  It all comes down to what I call "M&M" — money and morals — and smart criminal justice legislation speaks to both....

As its name suggested, the First Step Act was just the first step, and there are many more steps that be taken to make our federal justice system fairer and more effective.  Even while there is so much we are divided on as a country, when it comes to reforming our broken criminal justice system, there are plenty of promising paths forward.  One of those next steps is ending one of the most unjust laws we have on the books: the cocaine and crack sentencing disparity....

Unfortunately, Congress missed its chance to build on the First Step Act.  This week, the EQUAL Act — the bipartisan bill to eliminate the sentencing disparity — was left out of end-of-year Senate negotiations.  And while the Department of Justice did recently issue sentencing guidance to fix the disparity for future cases, it is still not a permanent solution and will not retroactively help the thousands of folks still in prison serving long sentences that don’t fit the crime....

Yet despite not making it over the finish line this year, I am extremely hopeful for the future: both for this legislation, and for more paradigm-shifting criminal justice reform.  Before its untimely demise in the Senate, the EQUAL Act was approved with massive support from both the most conservative and liberal wings of the House, proving that bipartisan agreement on effective criminal justice policy is ripe for consideration in the coming Congress....  Let’s hope and pray that this time next year, our country will have taken the next step forward on criminal justice reform, and continue the great work we started with the First Step Act.  

I am quite pleased to see former Rep Collins continue to advocate for the EQUAL Act both "as a Christian" and "as a conservative."  But I think he undersells the achievements of the FIRST STEP Act when he speaks only of "over 7,500 folks have been able to regain their lives after the passage of the First Step Act."  This (somewhat unclear) BOP page, indicates as of this writing that there have been 11,421 "First Step Act releases," and I suspect that number reflects only those who have gotten out a bit earlier thanks to the "earned time" credits of the FSA. 

In addition, the BOP page reports nearly 4000 persons have benefitted from retroactive crack sentence reductions and andother nearly 4400 have benefitted from compassionate release thanks to new FSA processes.   And these BOP numbers would seem to be undercounts, as the US Sentencing Commission has reported here over 4200 retroactive sentence reductions and has reported here over 4500 grants of compassionte release.  (Of course, not everyone getting sentence reductions is getting immediately released from prison, but likely most are.)  The BOP page also reports that over 1200 persons have benefitted from expanded elderly home confinement provided by the FSA.

Though a precise accounting the the exact number of federal prisonsers who have been released somewhat earlier thanks to the First Step Act is hard to pin down, I do think it is probably twice and maybe three times as large as the 7,500 number stated by Collins.  And, assuming the newly filled US Sentencing Commission makes a variety of guideline amendments consistent with the FSA, the impacts of the First Step Act will continue to echo through the federal prison population.

Lots of new data and a notable date from the US Sentencing Commission

The US Sentencing Commission yesterday published two new data reports: (1) this updated compassionate release data report and (2) this FY 2022 fourth quarter sentencing data.  There are lots of stories within all these data, though I still see the top stories to be those discussed here before: there are dramatic district variations in compassionate release grant rates and there are still relatively few "within guideline" sentences" being imposed by judges.

Specifically, on compassionate release, the three districts of Georgia show one notable example of variation: the Southern District of Georgia has granted only 8 out of 296 sentence reduction motions for a 2.7% grant rate; the Middle District of Georgia has granted only 4 out of 265 sentence reduction motions for a 1.5% grant rate; but the Northern District of Georgia has granted 80 out of 174 sentence reduction motions for a 46% grant rate.  On original sentencing more generally, this most recent USSC data show that, for all of FY 22, only 42% of all federal sentences have been imposed "Within Guideline Range" (and the number is under 28% for "Drug Trafficking" cases).

For various reasons and in various ways, all these data in some sense reflect the consequences of the US Sentencing Commission having to function without a quorum and being unable to amend any guidelines for nearly five years.  But, of course, we now have a fully loaded Commission, and the Commissions are clearly hard at work on guidelines reforms.  We know that because the Commission has now officially announced that it will have a public meeting on January 12, 2023, and that announcement notes the meeting agenda is to include "Possible Vote to Publish Proposed Guideline Amendments and Issues for Comment."

Especially for federal drug sentencing statutes, it "turns out that 'and' has more meanings than one might suppose"

A couple of weeks ago in this post, I noted the notable Eleventh Circuit en banc ruling in US v. Garcon giving a broad reading to the FIRST-STEP-amended statutory safety valve to enable more federal drug defendants to benefit from its authorization for below mandatory-minimum sentences.  Thanks to a helpful reader, I see that today a split panel of the Sixth Circuit came out the other way in US v. Haynes, No. 22-5132 (6th Cir. Dec. 19, 2022) (available here).  Here are some passages from the majority opinion explaining the court's reasoning:

Aaron Haynes argues that the district court misinterpreted 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) when it denied him “safety valve” relief from his mandatory-minimum sentence. We agree with the district court’s interpretation of the statute and affirm....

The question presented is whether — as the government argues and the district court held — this provision requires the defendant to show that he has none of the criminal history described in subsections (A)-(C); or whether instead — as Haynes argues — the defendant must show only that he lacks the criminal history described in any one of those subsections. The answer to that question, everyone agrees, depends on the meaning of the word “and” as used in § 3553(f)(1)(B).

It turns out that “and” has more meanings than one might suppose.  By way of background, grammatical rules are an archetype of rules of conduct with which we often comply without conscious awareness of doing so.  Small children comply with any number of grammatical rules without awareness even of their existence; and adults comply with rules concerning the pluperfect and subjunctive tenses, for example, without consciously knowing what those rules are.  We likewise understand language according to these same grammatical rules, again often without awareness of their existence.  Thus, a particular grammatical rule might strike us as impossibly esoteric, and yet shape our understanding of language every day.  The task of determining the ordinary meaning of a word or phrase, therefore, is sometimes one of excavating — and taking conscious account of — rules as to which our compliance is often unconscious....

Here, the government’s interpretation of § 3553(f)(1) is logically coherent. Again by way of background, when § 3553(f)(1) was first enacted in 1994, it provided that any defendant with “more than one criminal history point” was ineligible for safety-valve relief.  See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) (1994).  Congress amended § 3553(f)(1) in the First Step Act of 2018 to read as it does now. Under the government’s interpretation — for a defendant to obtain relief from an otherwise mandatory-minimum sentence — the defendant must not have any of three disqualifying conditions in his criminal record: first, “more than 4 criminal history points,” itself a fourfold increase over the prior cap; second, a prior offense serious enough to add three points to his criminal record; and third, a prior 2-point “violent offense[.]”  Each of those conditions on its face is quite plausibly an independent ground to deny a defendant the extraordinary relief afforded by the safety valve — which means this reading is logically coherent.

The same is not true of Haynes’s interpretation, which would require that all these conditions be present for a defendant to be ineligible for safety-valve relief. Consider, for example, a defendant with 25 criminal history points, generated in part by six convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and six convictions for domestic assault.  (Both can be two-point violent offenses.  See, e.g., United States v. Delgado-Hernandez, 646 F.3d 562, 564 (8th Cir. 2011).)  Under Haynes’s interpretation, this defendant would qualify for safety-valve relief because of the fortuity that his criminal record lacks “a prior 3-point offense[.]” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1)(B).  Or consider an incorrigible recidivist with, say, 24 criminal-history points, comprising a half-dozen convictions for robbery and two convictions for possession of explosives with intent to terrorize. (Both are often three-point offenses.  See, e.g., United States v. Henderson, 209 F.3d 614, 616 (6th Cir. 2000); United States v. Priest, 447 F. App’x 682, 684 (6th Cir. 2011).)  This defendant too would be eligible for safety-valve relief, for want of a prior two-point violent offense. Results like these appear arbitrary enough to be implausible — which makes Haynes’s interpretation akin to an interpretation of beer-and-wine in the joint sense rather than the distributive one.  Haynes does offer a thoughtful response: namely that the district court serves as a gatekeeper in cases where § 3553(f)(1) generates results as bizarre as these.  But an ordinary reader would expect that § 3553(f)(1) itself would serve as a gatekeeper — and not an arbitrary one.  That indeed is the whole point of the provision.  The government’s reading of § 3553(f)(1) is therefore better than Haynes’s reading.

I believe that we now have the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Circuits adopting the government's approach to the new statutory safety valve, and the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits on the defendants' side.  It is now seemingly only a question of when, rather than if, the Supreme Court takes up this issue and tells us which meaning of "and" is to be applied in this context.

District Court finds sexual assault by guard and assistance prosecuting perpetrator provide basis for sentence reduction under 3582(c)(1)(A)

A helpful reader alerted me to a notable new opinion from a federal district court in US v. Brice, No. 13-cr-206-2 (ED Pa. Dec. 15, 2022) (available fore download below), which finds “extraordinary and compelling” reasons warranting a sentence reduction in the defendant's sexual assault by a federal corrections officer and her assistance to prosecutors in bringing that officer to justice.  Here is hope the Brice opinion gets started as a key passage: 

This case presents a difficult question under the First Step Act for compassionate release and involves balancing the disturbing conduct underlying Defendant Rashidah Brice’s conviction with the extraordinary and compelling events that occurred after sentence was imposed.  For reasons explained below, I will partially grant Brice’s motion and reduce her sentence by 30 months but will not order her release as she has requested.  Although Brice’s circumstances are extraordinary and compelling and warrant a reduction from her original sentence, due to the serious and violent nature of her crimes and their effect on the victims, I find that releasing Brice now would not be consistent with the sentencing factors of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)....

It is entirely appropriate for me to consider how Brice responded to suffering abuse at the hands of her prison guards. The “broad discretion” federal courts have “to consider all relevant information” at a “proceeding[] that may modify an original sentence” is “bounded only when Congress or the Constitution expressly limits the type of information a district court may consider in modifying a sentence.”  Concepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389, 2398 (2022). That Brice reacted to her trauma by agreeing to assist in the prosecution of her assailant supports a finding that Brice’s disproportionate suffering while in custody “warrant[s] . . . a reduction” in her sentence and that these circumstances are extraordinary and compelling.  Despite facing tremendous adversity both in her personal life before prison and at the hands of a prison guard, Brice responded by preventing more inmates from being abused, including cooperating in an investigation regarding individuals who had authority over her and could have retaliated against her.  I also note that Congress and the Department of Justice have determined that “[p]rison rape often goes unreported,” 34 U.S.C. § 30301(6), and “retaliation for reporting instances of sexual abuse and for cooperating with sexual abuse investigations is a serious concern in correctional facilities.” Department of Justice, National Standards To Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape, 77 F.R. 37106-01 (June 20, 2012).

Download BRICE sentence reduction opinion

The helpful reader who brought this ruling to my attention indicated this may be "the first time a federal court has concluded that either of these circumstances warrants compassionate release." The reader also rightly stated that this decision "is particularly timely, as Congress and Department of Justice leadership have been pressing the Bureau of Prisons to seek compassionate release for women abused behind bars."

"Do Prison Conditions Change How Much Punishment A Sentence Carries Out? Lessons From Federal Sentence Reduction Rulings During the COVID-19 Pandemic"

The title of this post is the title of this new paper now available via SSRN authored by Skylar Albertson. Here is its abstract:

A set of motions filed during the COVID-19 pandemic challenged federal judges to consider whether they should always view the duration of imprisonment — as contrasted with prison conditions — as the sole determinant of how much punishment a sentence carries out.  Under 18 U.S.C § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), federal judges may “reduce” already imposed terms of imprisonment upon finding that “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warrant reductions.  Prior to 2019, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) effectively controlled the scope of a catch-all subcategory of “Other Reasons” justifying sentence reductions.  The BOP used this authority almost exclusively for people who were in the final stages of terminal illness.  The First Step Act of 2018 (FSA) amended § 3582(c) in a manner that freed federal judges to decide for themselves what types of circumstances meet the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” standard.  The FSA also authorized people in federal custody to file motions on their own behalf, instead of permitting only the Director of the BOP to do so.

Roughly a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the increased use of lockdowns and other restrictions inside U.S. prisons.  Among the many thousands of people who moved for sentence reductions, several hundred argued that imprisonment with these new restrictions amounted to a greater punishment than pre-pandemic imprisonment.  This Article explores the lessons that the decisions adjudicating these motions offer for the design of sentencing laws — including second looks — as well as efforts to increase transparency surrounding life inside prisons.

En banc Eleventh Circuit now gives broad reading to FIRST-STEP-amended mandatory-minimum safety valve provision

Last year in posts here and here, I spotlighted a significant Ninth Circuit ruling in US v. Lopez, No. 19-50305 (9th Cir. May 21, 2021) (available here), which interpreted the FIRST-STEP-amended statutory safety valve to enable more federal drug defendants to benefit from its authorization for below mandatory-minimum sentences.  But, as I noted in this post, days earlier in US v. Garcon, No. 19-14650 (11th Cir. May 18, 2021) (available here), an Eleventh Circuit panel reach an opposite interpretation of this statutory language.  The Garcon ruling went en banc, and today resulted in this set of opinions running 85 pages with an array of opinions from a court split 7-5.  Writing for six judges, Chief Judge (and former USSC Acting Chair) Bill Pryor start the opinion for the Eleventh Circuit this way:

The question presented in this appeal of a grant of safety-valve relief is whether, in the First Step Act, the word “and” means “and.” The Act empowers a court to grant a criminal defendant relief from a mandatory minimum sentence, but that relief is available only if “the defendant does not have” “more than 4 criminal history points,” “a prior 3-point offense[,] . . . and . . . a prior 2-point violent offense.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) (emphasis added). Julian Garcon, who pleaded guilty to attempting to possess 500 grams or more of cocaine with intent to distribute, has a prior 3-point offense but does not have more than 4 criminal history points or a prior 2-point violent offense. The district court concluded that Garcon remained eligible for relief under the Act because he did not have all three characteristics. We agree. Because the conjunctive “and” joins together the enumerated characteristics, a defendant must have all three before he is ineligible for relief.  We affirm.

Bureau of Justice Statistics releases "Federal Prisoner Statistics Collected Under the First Step Act, 2022"

Via email this morning, I learned of this 25-page report produced by DOJ's Bureau of Justice Statistics. This BJS webpage provides this discriptive overview and these "highlights":

This is the fourth report as required under the First Step Act of 2018 (FSA; P.L. 115-391). It includes data on federal prisoners provided to BJS by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for calendar year 2021.  Under the FSA, BJS is required to report on selected characteristics of persons in prison, including marital, veteran, citizenship, and English-speaking status; education levels; medical conditions; and participation in treatment programs.  Also, BJS is required to report facility-level statistics, such as the number of assaults on staff by prisoners, prisoners’ violations of rules that resulted in time credit reductions, and selected facility characteristics related to accreditation, on-site healthcare, remote learning, video conferencing, and costs of prisoners’ phone calls.

Highlights

• The federal prison population increased more than 3%, from 151,283 at yearend 2020 to 156,542 at yearend 2021.
• In 2021, a total of 74 pregnant females were held in BOP-operated prison facilities, a 19% decrease from 2020 (91).
• During 2021, a total of 378 prisoners were receiving medication-assisted treatment (MAT) approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat a substance use disorder prior to their admission to federal prison, and 1,127 prisoners received MAT while in custody.
• In 2021, a total of 17,252 federal prisoners participated in a nonresidential substance use disorder treatment program, while 10,919 participated in a residential program.

How many federal LWOP sentences have been reduced via 3582(c)(1)(A) and on what grounds?

The question in the title of this post was prompted by a notable new ruling sent my way, US v. West, No. 06-21185 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 7, 2022), which grants a sentenced reduction motion for a prisoner serving a federal LWOP sentence.  Before discussing that opinion (which can be dowloaded below), I will note that Figure 2 of the USSC's latest Compassionate Release Data Report from September 2022 reports that 27.9% of the over 4000 prisoners who have had their 3582(c)(1)(A) motions granted were serving original sentences of "20 years or more."  In other words, since the First Step Act became law in December 2018, well over 1000 persons serving sentences of 20 or more years have received sentence reductions.  But, to my knowledge, the USSC has not provided further details with any data specifically regarding prisoners serving LWOP securing compassionate release or regarding the reasons judges commonly give when reducing LWOP sentences.

General numbers and broader trends aside, the ruling in West makes for an interesting read because the judge here decides that Apprendi error as well as unwarranted sentencing dispartity provided extraordinary and compelling reasons for a sentence reduction.  Here is how the West opinion gets started:

Roy West is in year 17 of a life without parole sentence.  The indictment and case submitted to the jury should have netted West not more than ten years in prison.

Errors on the part of competent people — prosecutors, defense counsel, probation officers and, ultimately, this judge at the time of sentencing — resulted in the imposition of a sentence in violation of the law on West.  Even skilled appellate counsel failed to raise the sentencing error.

West has no way to correct this extraordinary and compelling error — and end his days in prison — but through his now pending motion for sentence reduction (compassionate release).

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), as amended by the First Step Act of 2018, opens an avenue for this Judge to correct a fundamentally unfair sentence that did not exist before.  Justice and faith in our judicial system demand correction for the benefit of Roy West.

This human error on multiple levels, the resulting sentencing disparity, the absence of any other avenue for relief, and West’s extraordinary rehabilitation constitute extraordinary and compelling reasons for sentence reduction.  The 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors support a sentence reduction as well.

Download West CR opinion

Another discouraging dispatch about BOP's shaky First Step Act steps

Walter Palvo continues to provide terrific coverage of difficulties in the implementation of the First Step Act's earned time credits, and this latest piece in Forbes is titled "Bureau Of Prisons’ Failure To Communicate First Step Act."  Here are excerpts from this lengthy piece that merits a full read:

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is under new leadership but it is still suffering from decades of mismanagement. BOP Director Colette Peters began work on August 2nd of this year ... [and] testified on September 29, 2022 in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.... Senator Dick Durbin was frustrated in Peters’ testimony stating that the full effects of FSA had not been implemented nearly 4 years after it being signed into law.  Peters assured the Senators that an auto-calculator was completed in August 2022 that provided FSA credits to prisoners which had the effect of reducing many sentences.  However, that auto-calculator was not in place at the time of the hearing, or at least it was not communicated to prisoners or the public. 

According to dozens of prisoners I interviewed for this piece, calculations were not communicated to them nor reflected on BOP.gov, which tracks release dates for federal prisoners.  Anticipating this computer program’s rollout that would reduce many prisoner release dates, prisoners and their families eagerly awaited the news of when they would be going home.  As the weeks passed after after August, prisoners still had no news.  It was not until the week of October 3rd that FSA credits started to be applied.  As one prisoner told me, “I was expecting a year of credits and I got 4 months. I have no idea what happened.”

What happened is that the calculator still has errors in it.  Prisoners who were transferred to a halfway house after receiving an interim calculation of their sentence, were called in and told they would be returning to prison after the new calculation took away their year....

Prisoners have worked for years to take programming that the FSA law stated would earn them credits.  Now, as implemented, those credits are fewer than many thought and they still do not have answers.  They also have no realistic remedy to correct it in a timely manner.  Millions of dollars will now be spent on litigation that will last years while prisoners who should be released stay in prison.

Some prior related posts:

• Thousands of federal prisoners finally to get FIRST STEP Act credits as DOJ implements earned time rules
• Articulating concerns while celebrating implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits
• Highlighting the challenging issues of implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits
• Highlighting continuing struggles with implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits
• Another account of continuing struggles with FIRST STEP Act implementation 
• Another ugly report on the ugly implementation of the FIRST STEP Act

Brennan Center publishes new report on "The First Step Act’s Prison Reforms: Uneven Implementation and the Path Forward"

I was alerted via email this morning about this notable new Brennan Center report titled “The First Step Act’s Prison Reforms: Uneven Implementation and the Path Forward.”  I recommend the report in full, but the email I received usefully summarized the reports "recommendations to Congress and to the Department of Justice and its Bureau of Prisons to fulfill the First Step Act’s potential":

• Broaden eligibility for earned time credits so more people can get released earlier. (Congress)

• Revise PATTERN (Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risks and Needs): Focus on predicting the risk of reconviction or re-incarceration, rather than rearrest, to reduce racial disparities in PATTERN’s risk predictions. (Department of Justice)

• Decouple PATTERN from earned time credit eligibility so that all people incarcerated by the Bureau of Prisons are incentivized to participate in programming and productive activities. (Department of Justice)

• Expand prison program offerings (e.g., drug treatment or literacy programs, work or vocational training) and interpret rules expansively to ensure that people can earn credits where programs are inaccessible or booked. (Department of Justice)

• Increase funding for prison reforms so the Bureau of Prisons has the resources it needs to deploy high-quality prison programming. (Congress)

Ninth Circuit panel holds non-retroactive sentencing changes can be considered in compassionate release motions

Weighing in on an issue that has split circuits, a Ninth Circuit panel today in US v. Chen, No. 20-50333 (9th Cir. Sept. 14, 2022) (available here), held that "a district court may consider the First Step Act’s non-retroactive changes to sentencing law, in combination with other factors particular to the individual defendant, when determining whether extraordinary and compelling reasons exist for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)."  The Chen opinion explains how "other circuits are split concerning this issue," but ultimately decides to "join the First, Fourth, and Tenth circuits and conclude that district courts may consider non-retroactive changes in sentencing law, in combination with other factors particular to the individual defendant, when analyzing extraordinary and compelling reasons for purposes of § 3582(c)(1)(A)."  Here is a portion of the panel's explanation for its ruling:

Congress has only placed two limitations directly on extraordinary and compelling reasons: the requirement that district courts are bound by the Sentencing Commission’s policy statement, which does not apply here, and the requirement that “[r]ehabilitation . . . alone” is not extraordinary and compelling.... To hold that district courts cannot consider nonretroactive changes in sentencing law would be to create a categorical bar against a particular factor, which Congress itself has not done. In fact, such a categorical bar would seemingly contravene the original intent behind the compassionate release statute, which was created to provide 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.” Ruvalcaba, 26 F.4th at 26 (citing S. Rep. No. 98225, 55–56, 121 (1983)....

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Concepcion confirms that, in the context of modifying a sentence under the First Step Act, “[i]t is only when Congress or the Constitution limits the scope of information that a district court may consider in deciding whether, and to what extent, to modify a sentence, that a district court’s discretion to consider information is restrained.” 142 S. Ct. at 2396.  Since Congress has not legislated to create a third limitation on extraordinary and compelling reasons prohibiting district courts from considering non-retroactive changes in sentencing law, we decline to create one now....

Through § 3582(c)(1)(A) and § 994(t), Congress has demonstrated that it can, and will, directly limit what constitutes extraordinary and compelling reasons.  It is therefore hard to reconcile the argument that we should infer a categorical bar on extraordinary and compelling reasons with Congress’s prior decisions not to create such stark limitations on a district court’s discretion.

Formerly incarcerated and advocacy groups write to new head of federal BOP

This webpage at the Sentencing Project has the full text of this letter from formerly incarcerated individuals and advocacy organizations to new Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters advocating for various reforms.  The full letter is worth a full read, and here are a few excerpts:

As people formerly incarcerated in US Bureau of Prisons facilities and organizations dedicated to civil rights and justice, we know well the challenges that await you and hope to share with you our concerns and advice for advancing the systemic reform you have pledged to achieve.  We have all witnessed the Bureau’s failure to provide adequate medical care, safe conditions, and rehabilitative programs.  We ask you to bring the Bureau into compliance with federal law and to lead the Bureau toward a more humane future grounded in transparency and accountability....

Federal prisons are plagued by inadequate medical care, overcrowding, staff shortages, unsanitary conditions, violence, and abuse.  These conditions are well-documented in media coverage, Office of Inspector General and Bureau reports, and congressional testimony.  Following a recent oversight hearing on July 26, Senator Ossoff observed within FCI Atlanta that “conditions for inmates were abusive and inhumane” and that “stunning failures of federal prison administration” “likely contributed to the loss of life.”5) FCI Atlanta is not unique; all federal prisons urgently need reform....

Compassionate release can save the lives of medically vulnerable people, ease staff shortages by reducing the prison population, and provide mercy.  Yet the Bureau rarely uses its power to file motions for compassionate release in extraordinary or compelling circumstances.... [O]ver the first 13 months of the pandemic, the Bureau only ultimately approved 36 compassionate release requests, fewer than in 2019.  You have the power to change that.  We urge you to normalize the use of compassionate release to save lives, reunite families, and make federal prisons safer....

In 2018, Congress passed the First Step Act, a vital piece of legislation that gave many people hope.  Congress recognized that people grow and change, and that it was in the interest of the American people and public safety to allow individuals to earn the ability to come home sooner by completing rehabilitative programs.  But today, almost five years later, the Bureau has still failed to fully implement the First Step Act....

Abuse, corruption, and misconduct have been apparent within the Bureau for decades, but leadership has too often failed to act. In 2019, the House Subcommittee on National Security found that misconduct in the federal prison system is widespread and routinely covered up or ignored, including by senior officials.  The recent oversight hearing on FCI Atlanta highlighted decades of corruption and abuse and inaction by the Bureau Director.  We urge you to set a new standard and lead the Bureau towards transparency and accountability.

First Circuit panel reiterates district courts' "broad discretion" and "holistic review" when resolving compassionate release motions

Today seems to be my day for catching up with circuit rulings regarding federal compassionate release decision-making.  My prior post today here about the Second Circuit's panel rulings limiting the consideration of certain arguments prompted a helpful reader to make sure I saw the recent First Circuit panel ruling running the other way.  In US v. Trenkler,  No. 21-1441 (1st Cir. Aug. 29, 2022) (available here), the panel stressed and reiterated a prior ruling setting out compassionate release rules:

Ruvalcaba convincingly set the standard for a district court reviewing a prisoner's proposed reasons for compassionate release, making it clear that district courts have the discretion to review prisoner-initiated motions by taking the holistic, any complex-of-circumstances approach we discussed earlier.  Indeed, this approach makes sense.  After all, it is possible that the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts, and reasons that might not do the trick on their own may combine to constitute circumstances that warrant a finding that the reasons proposed are, in the aggregate, extraordinary and compelling.  This is not to say that a district court must find a certain number of extraordinary and compelling reasons.  Rather, in conducting their reviews, district courts should be mindful of the holistic context of a defendant's individual case when deciding whether the defendant's circumstances satisfy the "extraordinary and compelling" standard -- "any complex of circumstances" contemplates that any number of reasons may suffice on a case-by-case basis, whether it's one, two, or ten.

I noted here the remarkable district court opinion last year in Trexler, and this case and so many others serve as a remarkable reminder of just how many different federal prisoners can cite to so many different circumstances when seeking a sentence modification.  A huge federal prison system necessarily creates a huge number of questions in the wake of the First Step Act's change to the compassionate release rules. 

Second Circuit panel rules evidence attacking underlying conviction "cannot be raised in a § 3582 motion" for compassionate release ... and reiterates point after Concepcion

UPDATE/Clarification:  A helpful reader flagged for me that on Aug 31, the Second Circuit actually reissued its Orena opinion after having issued its original opinion on June 15.  I have now corrected/amended this post accordingly.

---- 

Just today I saw a second version of a panel opinion from the Second Circuit issued which expressly invents another non-textual limit on what factors can be considered by district courts when deciding whether to grant a motion for compassionate release.  The per curiam opinion in US v. Orena, No. 21-2747 (2d Cir. June 15, amended Aug. 31, 2022) (original available here), get started this way:

As part of the First Step Act of 2018, Congress authorized courts to reduce a term of imprisonment upon motion by a defendant. See Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 603(b), 132 Stat. 5194, 5239 (amending 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)).  Section 3582(c)(1), colloquially known as the “compassionate release” provision, permits a district court to reduce a previously imposed sentence “after considering the factors set forth in [18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)] to the extent that they are applicable, if it finds that . . . extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction.”  Appellant Victor Orena contends primarily that the district court erred in denying his motion pursuant to § 3582 by refusing to consider new evidence that he says calls into question the validity of his conviction.

We conclude that when considering a motion for sentence reduction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), a district court does not have discretion to consider new evidence proffered for the purpose of attacking the validity of the underlying conviction in its balancing of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. Facts and arguments that purport to undermine the validity of a federal conviction must be brought on direct appeal or pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 or § 2241. Because the district court properly refused to consider such evidence here as to the § 3553(a) factors and otherwise did not abuse its discretion in denying Orena’s motion for compassionate release, we affirm.

Here is a key paragraph from the opinion:

Orena primarily contends that the district court erred by assuming the PSR’s accuracy and refusing to weigh his new evidence as part of the § 3553(a) factors.  We disagree. Section 3582(c)(1)(A) directs courts to “consider[] the factors set forth in section 3553(a).”  Section 3553 in turn provides “[f]actors to be considered in imposing a sentence.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (emphasis added).  To impose a sentence, there must necessarily be a valid conviction.  If a defendant contends his conviction by a federal court is invalid, Congress has provided a vehicle to raise such a challenge through a motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which imposes particular procedural limitations.  A defendant cannot evade this collateral review structure by attacking the validity of his conviction through § 3582.  Accordingly, we conclude, arguments challenging the validity of an underlying conviction cannot be raised in a § 3582 motion as part of the § 3553(a) sentencing factors.  Rather, such arguments are properly raised on direct appeal or collateral review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255.  Other courts have reached the same conclusion. See e.g., United States v. Bard, No. 21-3265, 2022 WL 843485, at *2 (3d Cir. March 22, 2022) (unpublished per curiam); United States v. Miller, 855 F. App’x 949, 950 (5th Cir. 2021) (unpublished per curiam)

I get the logic of courts wanting to channel efforts to invalidate a conviction into 2255 or 2241 motions. But in some cases prisoners may be eager to highlight problems with the validity of an underlying conviction to bolster their arguments under § 3553(a) that a sentence reduction would produce a sentence that better "promote[s} respect for the law" or would help "avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct."  Because there is no express text in § 3582(c)(1)(A) that would seem clearly to bar this kind of evidence and argument, and because there is text in § 3553(a) that would seem potentially to invite this kind of evidence and argument, I think it problematic — at least for those of us concerned about textualist limits of judicial policy-making — to see another circuit court inventing another non-textual limit on what factors can be considered by district courts when deciding whether to grant a motion for compassionate release.

As I blogged here back in June, the Supreme Court's ruling in Concepcion seem to clearly indicated that circuit courts should not be creating extra-textual limits on the discretion that Congress has given to sentencing judges.  And the defendant in this Second Circuit cases sought reconsideration based on Concepcion, which led to the reissued opinion linked below.  Here is a key added footnote in the amended opinion:

The Supreme Court’s decision in Concepcion does not conflict with our decision in this case.  In Concepcion, the Court emphasized a “longstanding tradition” of discretion afforded to courts consider changes in law or fact when sentencing or resentencing a defendant. 142 S. Ct. at 2395.  However, the Court acknowledged that that discretion is subject to constraints imposed by Congress and the Constitution. Id. at 2400–01.  One such constraint is 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which provides the procedural mechanism for Orena’s arguments regarding actual innocence and the legality of his conviction.

Download Orena Aug 31 2022

This footnote makes my head hurt, because there is absolutely no language in 28 U.S.C. § 2255 which can be fairly read as a "constraint" on what may be valid considerations in the exercise of § 3582/3553(a) discretion.  There is language in § 2255 which limits when and how § 2255 motions are to be resolved, but nothing in that provision places any express or implicit "constraint" on what should be part of compassionate release considerations.  Sigh... Cf. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871) ("'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less'.")

Ninth Circuit panel finds no improper enhancement when safety-valve-proffer information is considered with other information in setting below-guideline sentence

Addressing an issue of first impression, a Ninth Circuit panel today issued an interesting opinion addressing the application of a small provision of the FIRST STEP Act in US v. Brown, No. 20-5313 (9th Cir. Aug. 2, 2022) (available here).  Here are excerpts from part of the opinion providing background and the heart of the ruling:

In this case, Appellant Marquis Brown was arrested for smuggling drugs across the border. He pleaded guilty to the charge and faced a statutory ten-year mandatory minimum sentence.  He subsequently took advantage of a safety valve proffer and became safety valve eligible for a sentence below the mandatory minimum sentence. The district court imposed a 78-month sentence. That sentence was below Brown’s guidelines range of 108–135 months, but above the 71 months requested by the government, and the 42 months recommended by his attorney and the Probation Department.

Brown now appeals, arguing that his sentence was procedurally defective because the district court improperly relied on information he disclosed in his safety valve proffer to “enhance” his sentence....

Brown contends that the district court committed a procedural error because it improperly enhanced his sentence in violation of the First Step Act of 2018.  The First Step Act, which in part amended 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f), proscribes, inter alia, district courts judges from using information “disclosed by a defendant” in a safety valve proffer “to enhance the sentence of the defendant unless the information relates to a violent offense.” Pub. L. No. 115391, 132 Stat. 5194 (Dec 21, 2018). Despite the district court imposing a sentence that is below his guidelines range, Brown argues that the court ran afoul of this proscription when it relied on information from the safety valve proffer to deny him a further sentence reduction....

We have regularly held that the denial of a sentencing benefit or reduction is not an “increase in punishment.”  See, e.g. United States v. Waters, 771 F.3d 679 (9th Cir. 2014) (reviewing whether amendments to a statute violated a constitutional prohibition on when States can increase the punishment for a defendant’s crime).  In Waters, the appellant argued that a statute the district court relied on to deny his request for sentence reduction violated the Ex Post Facto Clause. Id. at 680.  We held that the amendments merely limited the appellant’s ability to reduce his sentence and “[did] not increase the punishment for his crime[.]” Id. at 681....

We hold that the district court did not impose an improper sentence enhancement here.  Brown contends that because the district court used information from the proffer in determining his final sentence, it was an improper enhancement.  It is clear that the district court considered information disclosed in the safety valve proffer to impose a sentence, such as Brown’s previous drug smuggling trips.  This is not prohibited.  The district court noted the previous drug smuggling trips, but also mentioned various other aggravating factors, including the nine-year-old being in the car, the amount and type of drug involved, and the impact on the community.  The sentencing court considered the safety valve information in conjunction with other mitigating and aggravating factors in its determination of a downward sentence variance.  The district court imposed a sentence of 78 months — a sentence not just below the mandatory minimum, but also 30 months below the low end of Brown’s guidelines range.  This does not constitute an enhancement.

Brown takes issue with the fact that the sentence was not as low as he had requested.  But the failure to reduce a sentence is not an enhancement.  Moreover, we do not take the First Step Act’s proscription as Congress stripping away a district court’s discretion.  All that § 3553(f)(5) prohibits is using information from a safety valve proffer “to enhance the sentence[.]” § 3553(f)(5).  Here, Brown got the benefit of the safety valve reduction, resulting in a sentence below both the mandatory minimum and his guidelines range. This is not an improper “enhancement” of a sentence under § 3553(f)(5).

Another ugly report on the ugly implementation of the FIRST STEP Act

NBC News has another notable and depressing report on the implementation (or lack thereof) of the prison reform aspects of the FIRST STEP Act.  The full headline provides a summary: "Staffing shortages and deficient training leave First Step Act floundering, federal prison employees say: 'This is the biggest failure I've seen of something that's a law. It's pathetic,' one prison counselor said."  I recommend the piece in full, and here are excerpts:

Chronic staffing shortages in federal prisons and a lack of training have impeded implementation of a Trump-era law designed to give nonviolent inmates the opportunity for early release, locking some up longer and contributing to eroding morale, union leaders and rank-and-file staff members said in interviews....

Staff members at some of the country's largest federal prisons said carrying out the First Step Act, a bipartisan law signed in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, has been taxing, if not impossible. "It's not going at all," Joe Rojas, the literacy coordinator at the Coleman Federal Corrections Complex in Florida, said of the First Step Act's implementation. "I'm the education department, and we're never open, and if we are, it's barely," said Rojas, who is also the president of the American Federation of Government Employees' Local 506 at Coleman....

Bureau officials say they have worked to identify inmates who qualify for early release and "have no data which suggests inmates had their release dates delayed."

Rojas said employees like him who should be operating programs that can help inmates earn time credits aren't able to do so because they're being diverted to other correctional officer-type duties during the staffing shortage — a practice known as augmentation. "Most of us are augmented," Rojas said. "There's no programming. If there's no programming, you can't do the First Step Act."

Some prior related posts:

• Thousands of federal prisoners finally to get FIRST STEP Act credits as DOJ implements earned time rules
• Articulating concerns while celebrating implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits
• Highlighting continuing struggles with implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits
• Highlighting the challenging issues of implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits
• Another account of continuing struggles with FIRST STEP Act implementation 

Seventh Circuit panel refuses to reconsider its extra-textual limit on compassionate release in light of Supreme Court's Concepcion decision

In this post a few weeks ago, I highlighted key language from the Supreme Court's work in Concepcion v. US, No. 20-1650 (S. Ct. June 27, 2022) (available here), that should help resolve a circuit split surrounding what factors can serve as the basis for compassionate release.  As explained in that post, I believe non-retroactive changes in sentencing law can potentially provide the basis for compassion release because nothing in the text of § 3582(c)(1)(a) supports the contention that non-retroactive changes cannot ever constitute "extraordinary and compelling reasons" to allow a sentence reduction.  Though the Third, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Circuits have held otherwise, language from Concepcion would seem to undercut extra-textual limits on sentencing or sentence-modification considerations.  Here is one of a number of passages from Concepcion stressing that all relevant sentencing information is to be part of all sentencing determinations unless expressly excluded by statute (with my emphasis added):

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.

Disappointingly, it seems the first circuit panel to consider Concepcion expressly has decided to double-down on its extra-textual limit on what may be compassionate release considerations.  The Seventh Circuit today in a short opinion in US v. King, No. 21-3196 (7th Cir. July 11, 2022) (available here), refuses to engage with the key language of Concepcion but says this:

When deciding whether “extraordinary and compelling reasons”, 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A)(i), justify a prisoner’s compassionate release, judges must not rely on non-retroactive statutory changes or new judicial decisions.  That’s the holding of United States v Thacker, 4 F.4th 569 (7th Cir. 2021).... There’s nothing “extraordinary” about new statutes or caselaw, or a contention that the sentencing judge erred in applying the Guidelines; these are the ordinary business of the legal system, and their consequences should be addressed by direct appeal or collateral review under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.

William King, who was sentenced to 216 months’ imprisonment following his guilty plea to three heroin charges, contends that Concepcion v. United States, No. 20–1650 (U.S. June 27, 2022), requires us to abandon these decisions and hold that anything at all — factual or legal, personal or systemic, routine or unique — may be treated as “extraordinary and compelling”.  That would be hard to reconcile with the language of the statute.  Routine is the opposite of extraordinary....

Concepcion ... held that, when substantive changes made by the First Step Act (principally reductions in the authorized ranges for crack-cocaine crimes) entitle a prisoner to be resentenced, the judge may consider everything that would have been pertinent at an original sentencing.  We may assume that the same would be true if a district judge were to vacate a sentence on application for compassionate release and hold a full resentencing proceeding. But decisions such as Thacker concern the threshold question: whether the prisoner is entitled to a reduction under § 3582(c)(1)(A)....

The First Step Act did not create or modify the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” threshold for eligibility; it just added prisoners to the list of persons who may file motions.  We take the Supreme Court at its word that Concepcion is about the matters that district judges may consider when they resentence defendants.  So understood, Concepcion is irrelevant to the threshold question whether any given prisoner has established an “extraordinary and compelling” reason for release.

As I have explained in prior posts, Congress via statute expressly stated that just one factor could never alone serve as the basis for sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(1)(a):  "Rehabilitation of the defendant alone shall not be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason." 28 USC § 994(t).  That textual exclusion reveals Congress can and did, through express statutory text, seek to exclude one and only one particular reason from alone serving as the basis for qualifying for a sentence reduction.  The expresio unius canon of construction — "the expression of one is the exclusion of others" — counsels that courts should not be inventing additional extra-textual categorical exclusions that Congress did not expressly state.  And Concepcion should serve as another reminder to circuit courts to stop inventing categorical limits on relevant considerations not set forth by Congress or the Constitution.

Of course, not every change in law could or should be considered “extraordinary and compelling” to provide the basis for compassionate release.   The alleged change in law cited by the defendant in King seems quite week, and I would not be so troubled if circuits were just indicating that they suspect only in rare cases might a change in law alone amount to an “extraordinary and compelling” reason.  But this new King decision reiterates the misguided notion that district judges are categorically excluded from ever considering "non-retroactive statutory changes or new judicial decisions" even though Concepcion stressed that the "only limitations on a court’s discretion to consider any relevant materials at an initial sentencing or in modifying that sentence are those set forth by Congress in a statute or by the Constitution."  Sigh.

Prior recent related posts:

• Via 5-4 ruling, Supreme Court stresses broad sentencing discretion in crack resentencing case Concepcion
• SCOTUS ruling in Concepcion, while addressing crack cases, should also resolve circuit split on compassionate release factors

Couple of choice Concepcion commentaries

The Supreme Court's work in Concepcion v. US, No. 20-1650 (S. Ct. June 27, 2022) (available here), is an important sentencing precedent that is sure to be overshadowed by this Term's higher profile cases.  But I have been pleased to see  a couple new notable commentaries on Concepcion.  Here are links and excerpts from two pieces worth reading in full:

From CNN by Van Jones and Nisha Anand, "A rare Supreme Court ruling this term where conservative and liberals joined forces"

The Supreme Court's ruling in Concepcion could mean reduced sentences for thousands of people.  It also means that the Court just made it easier to reward those who take steps to better themselves.  And allowing judges to take new information into account will help ensure that rehabilitation becomes the main point of our criminal justice system.

Helping people transform their lives reduces crime.  It keeps us all much safer than simply locking people behind bars with no hope for the future. If members of a deeply divided Supreme Court can recognize this, then surely the rest of us can as well.

From Law360 by Mark Osler, "Justices' Resentencing Ruling Boosts Judicial Discretion"

Is Concepcion good for criminal defendants? Well, it doubtlessly will be good for some of them — those who are in front of judges who are inclined to reduce a sentence based on rehabilitation or new law.  However, if they are in front of a judge who cares mostly about the original facts and finality, the ruling probably won't be good for those defendants.

That dynamic will not only create disparities based on judge, but will enhance existing disparities.  After all, the judge who was likely to give a longer sentence at the front end is also most likely to deny a break down the road, while the judge who gave a lighter sentence at the initial hearing is probably more amenable to reducing a sentence at the second-chance hearing....

In the broadest strokes, Concepcion weighed in favor of more recognition of human dignity in the criminal justice system by allowing a fuller view of a defendant.  While this decision, in isolation, may bring mixed results, that trend is a good one.

Prior related posts:

• Via 5-4 ruling, Supreme Court stresses broad sentencing discretion in crack resentencing case Concepcion
• SCOTUS ruling in Concepcion, while addressing crack cases, should also resolve circuit split on compassionate release factors 

Still more discussion of the BOP's failings with FIRST STEP Act

At Forbes, Walter Pavlo has this new piece under the headline "Bureau Of Prisons Holding Inmates For Longer Than Law Allows." The piece provides another account of the difficulties the BOP is having in giving persons in federal prison the credits set forth in the FIRST STEP Act. Here is an excerpt:

The FSA, signed into law by President Donald Trump in December 2018, allows many prisoners to earn additional time off of their sentence, up to a year, and also earn extensive time in pre-release custody (halfway house and home confinement). Those credits, up to 15 days for every 30 days of holding a job and participating in programs/education, can be significant. It means the difference between rejoining one’s family a year or more earlier than before the FSA. However, there are reports from around the country that the BOP is not providing accurate information to prisoners about their FSA credits and some are staying in prison longer than necessary....

A declaration by BOP’s Susan Giddings in a federal civil case (Northern District of Alabama, 1:22-cv-00294, Stewart v Warden) provides a glimpse of the challenges the BOP faces in trying to implement FSA. Giddings is the Chief of the Unit Management Section of the Correctional Programs Branch at the BOP’s Central Office in Washington DC. In addition to her role overseeing Correctional Systems, she has been involved in the development and implementation of the BOP’s FSA procedures. As part of Giddings’ declaration for the Petitioner, inmate Robert Stewart, she noted that “... for reasons that are not apparent to me, Petitioner’s FSA credits were in fact incorrectly calculated.” If one person’s is wrong, many others are as well. One of the reasons might be that the BOP is currently calculating these FSAs manually....

Thousands of inmates are in the position to be freed under FSA but many will be held longer than necessary as the BOP tries to get its computer system up to speed. As one family told me about waiting for the BOP’s new sentence calculator, “it can’t come soon enough.”

Some prior related posts:

• Thousands of federal prisoners finally to get FIRST STEP Act credits as DOJ implements earned time rules
• Articulating concerns while celebrating implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits
• Highlighting continuing struggles with implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits
• Highlighting the challenging issues of implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits
• Another account of continuing struggles with FIRST STEP Act implementation 

Another account of continuing struggles with FIRST STEP Act implementation

NBC News has this lengthy new piece under the headline "Thousands of federal inmates still await early release under Trump-era First Step Act." Here are excerpts:

Thousands of nonviolent federal prisoners eligible for early release under a promising Trump-era law remain locked up nearly four years later because of inadequate implementation, confusion and bureaucratic delays, prisoner advocacy groups, affected inmates and former federal prison officials say.

Even the Biden administration’s attempt to provide clarity to the First Step Act by identifying qualified inmates and then transferring them to home confinement or another form of supervised release appears to be falling short, according to prisoner advocates familiar with the law.

The Department of Justice was tasked with carrying out the law through the federal Bureau of Prisons, but the bureau director, Michael Carvajal, a Trump administration holdover, announced his retirement in January amid criticism of a crisis-filled tenure marked by agency scandals.  No replacement for Carvajal has been named, and criminal justice advocates contend that for the bureau to allow even one person to be incarcerated beyond what is permitted under the First Step Act exposes ongoing failures.

“It shouldn’t be this complicated and it shouldn’t take this long,” said Kevin Ring, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, or FAMM.  “Here we are, four years later, and it’s maddening.”

The Justice Department published a final rule in January that implements an integral feature of the law in which inmates can earn so-called time credits, which are obtained through participation in prison and work programs and calculated as part of the process of getting out early.  The problem, advocates say: They are identifying inmates whose time credits aren’t getting applied, and in some cases, the inmates aren’t getting released as early as they should be....

Data provided by the Bureau of Prisons shows that as of June 18, more than 8,600 inmates have had their sentences recalculated and are slated for release with the application of their time credits.  But it’s unclear how many qualified inmates are entitled to have been released early but remain incarcerated. In a response, bureau officials said, “We have no data which suggests inmates had their release dates delayed.”

But with the bureau’s own data identifying about 66,600 inmates who are eligible to earn time credits, some industry experts disagree. “We estimate that there are thousands of inmates who will not receive the full benefit — days off of their federal prison sentence — of the First Step Act simply because the agency is uncertain how to calculate these benefits,” said Walter Pavlo, president of the consulting firm Prisonology LLC....

Pavlo said the Bureau of Prisons never had the mechanisms in place to adequately track inmates’ participation and he is concerned the agency “is not facilitating the timely calculation and application of time credits in accordance with the final rule, forcing inmates to serve custodial terms longer than required.”  In the cases he’s reviewed, he said he has seen inmates in prison from six months up to a year who could have had either an earlier release or time in pre-release custody.  “The biggest problem is nobody on the front lines seems to understand the new rule,” Pavlo said. “There needs to be a task force on this now.”

Some prior related posts:

• Thousands of federal prisoners finally to get FIRST STEP Act credits as DOJ implements earned time rules
• Articulating concerns while celebrating implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits
• Highlighting continuing struggles with implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits
• Highlighting the challenging issues of implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits

SCOTUS ruling in Concepcion, while addressing crack cases, should also resolve circuit split on compassionate release factors

There are many notable aspects to the Supreme Court's work this morning in Concepcion v. US, No. 20-1650 (S. Ct. June 27, 2022) (available here).  The votes alone could justify many posts, with Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joining an opinion broadly praising broad district court sentencing discretion (citing historical cases for good measure), and with all the other conservative justices embracing a fairly impractical (and unjust) statutory construction without considering any statutory canons. 

More generally, in keeping with my prior complaints about the oral arguments in this case, I was struck that none of the opinions in Concepcion mention sentencing purposes or justice or fairness even once in a case that concerns efforts by Congress to give full effect to the Fair Sentencing Act through the FIRST STEP Act.  The fundamental legal issue in Concepcion was whether a group of defendants (almost all of whom are persons of color) who have been serving, according to Congress, unjust and wrongful federal sentences for more than a dozen years should be limited in how they can now argue for more just and rightful sentences.  And, given that the defendant in the case had already served 15 years (of a 19-year sentence) for a conviction based on selling a tablespoon of crack, there are an array of rich legal and human stories here that justify further attention.

But, as the title of this post highlights, I am already thinking about what the Concepcion ruling means outside the crack context.  Specifically, I think the decision resolves not only the circuit split surrounding crack resentencing cases, but also the circuit split surrounding what factors can serve as the basis for compassionate release after the FIRST STEP Act.  Let me explain.

As most recently highlighted via this post about a First Circuit ruling in February, there is a deep circuit split about whether non-retroactive changes in sentencing law may constitute "extraordinary and compelling reasons" for compassionate release.  Ever the textualist, I have argued that non-retroactive changes in sentencing law can provide the basis for compassion release because nothing in the text of § 3582(c)(1)(a) supports the contention that non-retroactive changes cannot ever constitute "extraordinary and compelling reasons" to allow a sentence reduction, either alone or in combination with other factors.  But I believe the Third, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Circuits have all formally held otherwise.  And yet, this language from the Supreme Court's opinion in Concepcion would seem to undercut any court efforts to invent extra-textual limits on sentencing or resentencing considerations:

It is only when Congress or the Constitution limits the scope of information that a district court may consider in deciding whether, and to what extent, to modify a sentence, that a district court’s discretion to consider information is restrained....

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....

The only limitations on a court’s discretion to consider any relevant materials at an initial sentencing or in modifying that sentence are those set forth by Congress in a statute or by the Constitution....

Moreover, when raised by the parties, district courts have considered nonretroactive Guidelines amendments to help inform whether to reduce sentences at all, and if so, by how much....  Nothing express or implicit in the First Step Act suggests that these courts misinterpreted the Act in considering such relevant and probative information.

All this language about a court's broad discretion not only at initial sentencing but also when considering a sentence modification is directly relevant to federal judges' consideration of so-called compassionate release motions.  Concepcion makes plain, contrary to the problematic rulings of some circuits, that the "only limitation" on valid considerations are those in the Constitution or that Congress has expressly set forth.  And thus the Supreme Court's textualist ruling here ought to not only benefit Carlos Concepcion, but also every federal prisoner moving for compassionate release on any and all possible grounds not expressly excluded by Congress or the Constitution.

Prior related post:

• Via 5-4 ruling, Supreme Court stresses broad sentencing discretion in crack resentencing case Concepcion

Via 5-4 ruling, Supreme Court stresses broad sentencing discretion in crack resentencing case Concepcion

In a 5-4 decision, with a somewhat surprising group of Justices in the majority, the Supreme Court this morning in Concepcion v. US, No. 20-1650 (S. Ct. June 27, 2022) (available here), stressed the broad scope of information that may be consider at sentencing or sentence modification. Here is how Justice Sotomayor's opinion for the Court gets started:

There is a longstanding tradition in American law, dating back to the dawn of the Republic, that a judge at sentencing considers the whole person before him or her “as an individual.” Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 113 (1996). In line with this history, federal courts today generally “exercise a wide discretion in the sources and types of evidence used” to craft appropriate sentences. Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 246 (1949). When a defendant appears for sentencing, the sentencing court considers the defendant on that day, not on the date of his offense or the date of his conviction. Pepper v. United States, 562 U.S. 476, 492 (2011).  Similarly, when a defendant’s sentence is set aside on appeal, the district court at resentencing can (and in many cases, must) consider the defendant’s conduct and changes in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines since the original sentencing. Ibid.

Congress enacted the First Step Act of 2018 against that backdrop. The First Step Act authorizes district courts to reduce the prison sentences of defendants convicted of certain offenses involving crack cocaine. The Act allows a district court to impose a reduced sentence “as if ” the revised penalties for crack cocaine enacted in the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 were in effect at the time the offense was committed. The question in this case is whether a district court adjudicating a motion under the First Step Act may consider other intervening changes of law (such as changes to the Sentencing Guidelines) or changes of fact (such as behavior in prison) in adjudicating a First Step Act motion.

The Court holds that they may. It is only when Congress or the Constitution limits the scope of information that a district court may consider in deciding whether, and to what extent, to modify a sentence, that a district court’s discretion to consider information is restrained. Nothing in the First Step Act contains such a limitation. Because district courts are always obligated to consider nonfrivolous arguments presented by the parties, the First Step Act requires district courts to consider intervening changes when parties raise them. By its terms, however, the First Step Act does not compel courts to exercise their discretion to reduce any sentence based on those arguments.

The District Court in this case declined to consider petitioner Carlos Concepcion’s arguments that intervening changes of law and fact supported his motion, erroneously believing that it did not have the discretion to do so, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Court now reverses.

Justice Kavanaugh authored the chief dissent for the Chief Justice, Justice Alito and Justice Barrett. It concludes this way:

The Court’s disregard of the text of the First Step Act is especially audacious because the Act was a heavily negotiated and vigorously debated piece of legislation. The Act reflects a compromise among competing interests. Not for the first time in a sentencing case, the Court’s decision today unravels the legislative compromise reflected in the statutory text. The Court in effect green-lights district courts, if they wish, to make the 2016 amendment to the career-offender guideline retroactive in First Step Act proceedings—even though neither Congress nor the Sentencing Commission has made that amendment retroactive. Perhaps the Court’s decision represents better sentencing policy. Perhaps not. But under the Constitution’s separation of powers, this Court may not simply rewrite the First Step Act as the Court thinks best.

In sum, I would conclude that the First Step Act authorizes district courts to reduce a sentence based on changes to the crack-cocaine sentencing ranges, but not based on other unrelated legal or factual changes since the original sentencing. The Court holds otherwise. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

I will need some time to review these opinions closely before being able to discuss the broader meaning and impact. But, yet again, it turns out sentencing jurisprudence at the Supreme Court is more pro-defendant than in many lower courts.

Another example of "old law" federal prisoners not getting compassionate release equal treatment

Last year, I blogged here about an NPR story regrading so-called "old law" federal prisoners, persons who committed federal crimes before November 1987 and who are therefore not currently able to apply to a judge for compassionate release under the FIRST STEP Act.  This follow-up post also noted the realities facing the group of very old (and often very sick) people in federal prison who were convicted of crimes before Nov 1987 and cannot seek compassionate release directly from courts. 

This past week, a helpful reader sent me a judicial opinion involving one of these "old law" prisoners, US v. Joseph, No.86-CR-00322 (SD Fla. June 2, 2022) (available for download below).  This short opinion highlights the plight of one of these prisoners, whom the judge decides meets the FIRST STEP Act criteria for compassionate release, but still cannot get a court to directly order a sentence reduction as can all prisoners convicted after Nov 1987.  I recommend the eight-page Joseph opinion in full, and here are excerpts (with some cites removed):

To put it simply, Mr. Joseph, who stands convicted of crimes occurring prior to November 1, 1987, may not personally move a district court for compassionate release....  While the Court is unable to grant the relief requested, Mr. Joseph remains able to submit a request for motion under section 4205(g) from the Warden at his facility.  U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 5050.50, Compassionate Release/Reduction in Sentence: Procedures for Implementation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 3582 and 4205(g) (2019) (“BOP Guidelines”).  In such request, Mr. Joseph must address the extraordinary and compelling circumstances that he believes warrant consideration, as well as his proposed release plan.  As explained below, Mr. Joseph has presented extraordinary and compelling circumstances, no longer presents a danger to society, and has an exceptional release plan....

Mr. Joseph is seventy-three years old, suffers from deteriorating medical conditions (including anemia, thrombocytopenia, prediabetes, bilateral low vision), has a history of leukopenia, prostate cancer, and atrial fibrillation, and is also overweight.  Report at 5.  At the hearing held by Magistrate Judge Becerra, Dr. Kossouf provided new testimony as to Mr. Joseph’s disconcerting blood cell condition.  Specifically, he testified that Mr. Joseph suffers from a life- threatening blood cell condition that will “inevitably evolve into an aggressive form of leukemia.” Report at 13. Importantly, there is no treatment for Mr. Joseph’s condition and his most recent bloodwork demonstrated a sharp deterioration in his health. Id. (emphasis added)....

Mr. Joseph has provided significant evidence of both the extent and depth of his family support — financially and emotionally.  It is the exceptional nature of his family support that makes it extremely unlikely Mr. Joseph will reoffend.  Moreover, almost forty years have passed since Mr. Joseph committed his offenses and he would be closely supervised while residing with his son and daughter-in-law.  Further, in an almost unprecedented turn of events, Mr. Tilman, a retired sergeant, testified in support of Mr. Joseph’s compassionate release to home confinement.  The retired sergeant corroborated the testimony of Trevin Joseph, Mr. Joseph’s son, regarding the extensive support Mr. Joseph will have upon his release.  In other words, Mr. Joseph has a release plan that this Court views favorably.

Mr. Joseph is not yet eligible for parole.  Thus, he cannot seek early release through this avenue.  In that way, he is no different from a “new law” prisoner — for whom no parole may be sought.  However, unlike a “new law” prisoner, Mr. Joseph can only request compassionate release through the Warden at his facility.  If the Warden denies his request, that is the proverbial end of the road for Mr. Joseph.  The “new law” prisoner, however, has one additional option — a direct motion to this Court upon exhaustion of administrative remedies.  This disparity between “old law” and “new law” prisoners appears wholly unwarranted.

In sum, the statutory language here is clear and unequivocal.  Mr. Joseph cannot seek relief directly from this Court based on compassionate release under section 3582.  Nonetheless, the Court trusts that the Warden can initiate the proper compassionate release process for an “old law” prisoner like Mr. Joseph under section 4205.  In the meantime, the disparities highlighted in this Order certainly merit further examination by Congress, which is in the best position to determine whether it is appropriate to continue preventing inmates who committed offenses on or before October 31, 1987 from fully availing themselves of the First Step Act.  After all, one of Congress’s goals in passing the FSA was to broaden the reach of section 3582(c)(1)(A).

Download 86-CR-00322 - US v Joseph - CR Order

Prior related posts:

• "Old law" federal prisoners provide new reminder that parole does not cure all ills 
• Another reminder that "old law" federal prisoners are still awaiting compassionate equal treatment 

Highlighting continuing struggles with implementing the FIRST STEP Act's earned time credits

In this post from the start of this year, I flagged Walter Pavlo's discussion of nettlesome issues surrounding implementation of various parts of the FIRST STEP Act. Issues raised in that prior piece are reviewed anew in this new Palvo piece in Forbes headlined "First Step Act Inaction Keeps Federal Inmates In Prison." Here is how the piece gets started:

The First Step Act (FSA), which among other things, provided federal prisoners a way to effectively lower their prison terms through participation in programs and productive activities. The law, signed by President Donald Trump in December 2018, meant that some prisoners could reduce their prison terms by up to one year. However, the rollout of the program has resulted in men and women remaining in prison well beyond what their release dates would be under FSA.

When the Federal Register published the final FSA rule on January 19, 2022, it also included comments from congressmen who expressed the need for clarity of the law. One such comment was “The Bureau does not have the resources to implement the FSA Time Credits program appropriately.” Over four months since that statement, it has proven to be true.

According to insiders at the BOP, prisoners and former executive staff with connections to the current state of the BOP as it relates to the FSA, there is “mass confusion at every institution,” and that the Designation and Sentence Computation Center, the entity ultimately responsible for calculating sentence duration, is backed up and the programming is not in place for FSA. The result is that thousands of prisoners are incarcerated beyond their legal release date.

Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals decides court martialed prisoner cannot seek compassionate release in military courts

A helpful reader altered me to an interesting ruling this week from the US Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals in In re Kawai, Misc. Dkt. No. 2022-02 (AFCCA May 25, 2022) (available here). Here is how the opinion gets started:

On 29 January 2022, Petitioner requested this court grant him extraordinary relief in what he styled as a “Motion for Compassionate Release and Reduction in Sentence,” pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), and the First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194 (2018).  This court received, by mail, Petitioner’s request on 2 March 2022, and docketed his petition on 11 March 2022; the Court did not order briefs by the Government or Petitioner in response.  We conclude we do not have jurisdiction to adjudicate Petitioner’s request and deny the petition.

Here is a key portion of the ruling:

The problem for Petitioner is the review of a motion for compassionate release is jurisdictional. “A motion to file for compassionate release can only be brought before the sentencing judge.” Ferguson v. United States, No. 1:22-cv10542, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50986, at *2 (E.D. Mich. 21 Mar. 2022).  Yet, “[g]eneral courts-martial are ad hoc proceedings which dissolve after the purpose for which they were convened has been resolved.” Witham v. United States, 355 F.3d. 501, 505 (6th Cir. 2004).  Because Petitioner’s court was dissolved after his case, and because his case is final under Article 76, UCMJ, there is no sentencing court within the military service courts in which Petitioner may bring a motion under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).

However, Congress has charged federal district courts with exercising jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitioners who are imprisoned as a result of court-martial convictions. See Burns v. Wilson, 346 U.S. 137, 139 (1953); Chapman, 75 M.J. at 601; see also Gilliam v. Bureau of Prisons, No. 99-1222, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 3684, at *3 (8th Cir. 10 Mar. 2000) (unpub. op.).  Federal district court is also the proper venue for Petitioner’s motion. See Owens, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61460, at *2.

New Executive Order from Prez Biden, though mostly on policing, includes some sentencing and corrections matters

This new "FACT SHEET" from the White House, titled "President Biden to Sign Historic Executive Order to Advance Effective, Accountable Policing and Strengthen Public Safety," provides an overview of what the latest presidential EO will cover in the criminal justice space. Though focused mostly on policing issues, I was intrigued to see this passage at the very end of the fact sheet:

Reforms Our Broader Criminal Justice System

Directs a government-wide strategic plan to propose interventions to reform our criminal justice system.  A new committee with representatives from agencies across the federal government will produce a strategic plan that advances front-end diversion, alternatives to incarceration, rehabilitation, and reentry.  The Attorney General will also publish an annual report on resources available to support the needs of persons on probation or supervised release.

Improves conditions of confinement. The Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will update procedures as necessary to increase mitigation of Covid-19 in correctional facilities; expand the publication and sharing of vaccination, testing, infection, and fatality data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, age, sex, disability, and facility; and to identify alternatives to facility-wide lockdowns and restrictive housing to reduce the risk of transmission.  The Attorney General will also report to the President on steps to limit the use of restrictive housing and improve conditions of confinement, including with respect to the incarceration of women, juveniles, and persons in recovery.

Requires full implementation of the FIRST STEP Act. The Attorney General will update DOJ policy as necessary to fully implement the FIRST STEP Act and to report annually on implementation metrics, including an assessment of any disparate impact of the PATTERN risk assessment tool and steps to correct any such disparities.

UPDATE: Here is the full detailed "Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety" from the Biden White House.

"Canceling Compassion: Nonretroactivity and the Narrowing of Postconviction Relief in Federal Courts"

The title of this post is the title of this new paper authored by Carl Wu now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

In 2018, Congress passed the First Step Act, which opened the door for incarcerated individuals to apply directly to district courts for release or a sentence reduction by way of compassionate release.  A form of postconviction relief, certain federal courts have narrowed the scope of eligibility for compassionate release based on a restrictive reading of what are “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for relief.  Specifically, these courts hold that nonretroactive changes in sentencing law cannot constitute such “extraordinary and compelling” reasons as a matter of law.  This article explores the now-intractable circuit split that has emerged on this issue, critiques the underlying non-textual motivations that have guided certain courts, and proposes an immediate resolution by the Supreme Court.  Yet the deep disagreement amongst the courts, which has precluded relief based solely on an individual’s geographic location, raises a further question: should courts be the sole arbiter of compassionate release?

"Unequal Treatment: (In)compassionate Release from Federal Prison in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Vaccine"

The title of this post is the title of this new piece now available via SSRN authored by Mariah Haley. Here is its abstract:

COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, has wreaked havoc globally since it was first discovered in December 2019.  In the United States, many federal prisons experienced outbreaks of the virus, leading to both severe illness and death.  Almost as soon as the pandemic began in the United States, people in prison — especially those with preexisting conditions — turned to the statutory mechanism known as “compassionate release” to request early release from prison based on the “extraordinary and compelling” nature of the pandemic.

This Note examines how federal courts have considered compassionate release requests during the pandemic.  The Note further explores the disparate outcomes resulting from the vast judicial discretion within the compassionate release space.  While no two compassionate release cases are the same, with cases very fact-intensive, this Note argues that the current system results in inequitable geographical-based outcomes.  In concluding, this Note calls on the United States Sentencing Commission to offer guidance to federal courts on how to approach compassionate release requests in the context of the First Step Act and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

"When a Second Chance Gets a Second Chance: Reasonableness Review Reigns for Motions Under Section 404(b) of the First Step Act on Appeal"

The title of this post is the title of this new comment now available on SSRN authored by Patrick Riley. Here is its abstract: 

The First Step Act of 2018 was an historic criminal justice reform bill that, among its many provisions, retroactively reduced the disparity in sentencing for offenses involving crack and powder cocaine.  Before 2010, federal law mandated the same minimum criminal penalties for conduct involving an amount of crack cocaine one hundred times smaller than an amount of powder cocaine.  In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced this disparity from 100:1 to 18:1.  However, the updated penalties only applied to sentences imposed after the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act.  Those already sentenced under the 100:1 ratio were left without any recourse until the First Step Act was passed in 2018.

Section 404(b) of the First Step Act applied the changes made by the Fair Sentencing Act retroactively to defendants imprisoned for crack cocaine offenses before the Fair Sentencing Act was passed in 2010.  Since the First Step Act was passed, federal courts have diverged in how they interpret their roles and responsibilities under section 404(b). One group of circuit courts interprets section 404(b) to provide limited discretion to the district court and, therefore, the appellate court need only review the district court’s decision under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.  The second group interprets section 404(b) to provide district courts with broad discretion to resentence defendants in a manner similar to an initial plenary sentencing, which appellate courts are required to review for reasonableness.

This Comment reaches the same result as the second group for two reasons: (1) This Comment applies the sentencing modification in 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(B), rather than § 3582(c)(2), to section 404(b) of the First Step Act; and (2) this Comment interprets the text and purpose of section 404(b) as a sweeping remedy granting district courts broad discretion — like initial plenary sentencings — that must be reviewed for reasonableness.

US Sentencing Commission releases latest detailed "Compassionate Release Data Report"

Via email, I got word that the US Sentencing Commission today published this updated compassionate release data report.  Here is the very brief accounting of the report from the email (as well as a reprinting of the graphic that appears as Figure 1 of the report):

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the courts received thousands of compassionate release motions, most filed by offenders.  This report provides an analysis of the compassionate release motions filed with the courts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Commission received the following information from the courts on motions decided during fiscal years 2020 and 2021 (October 1, 2019 – September 30, 2021):

• 3,867 offenders were granted compassionate release. This represents 17.2% of motions.

• 18,653 offenders were denied compassionate release. This represents 82.8% of motions.

There are lots and lots of interesting data points throughout this data report, including data highlighting that people sentenced long ago (and before the guidelines became advisory) had significantly higher success in getting a sentence reduction.  Also interesting is the data detailing the reasons that courts provided for granting these sentencing reduction motions, which suggests some small evolution in stated reasons from FY 2020 to FY 2021.

But most striking data are those details the dramatic variations in grant rates from various districts. As but one of many remarkable examples, consider the three districts of Georgia: the Southern District of Georgia granted only 5 out of 248 sentence reduction motions for a 2% grant rate; the Middle District of Georgia granted only 4 out of 217 sentence reduction motions for a 1.8% grant rate; but the Northern District of Georgia granted 76 out of 170 sentence reduction motions for a 44.7% grant rate.  One could also tell an island variation story, and no motions were granted (out of only six) in the Virgin Island district; but that lovely island district of Puerto Rico saw 79.2% of motions (19 of 24) granted. 

Remarkably, the District of Maryland — with a total of 211 sentencing reduction motions granted (though "only" a grant rate of 32.7% with 646 motions) — granted more of these motions that all the courts of the Fifth Circuit!  (The Fifth Circuit had the lower total circuit grant rate of 9.3% with only 204 motions granted out of 2,197 total brought.) 

Justice Department tweaking prison PATTERN risk tool "to ensure that racial disparities are reduced to the greatest extent possible"

This new NPR piece, headlined "Justice Department works to curb racial bias in deciding who's released from prison," reports on the latest steps being taken to tweak the operation of the FIRST STEP Act.  Here  are the details:

The Justice Department is moving to reduce racial disparities in a tool it uses to assess a prisoner's risk of a return to crime, after scholars and justice advocates pressed for change. Among other steps, it plans to make tweaks that would significantly increase the number of Black and Hispanic men in prison who are eligible to take educational classes or work-life programs that could lead to an earlier release.

But the tool, known as Pattern, continues to overestimate the number of Black women who will engage in recidivism, compared to white women in prison.  And in its latest effort to overhaul the troubled risk assessment algorithm, the Justice Department said it is still unable to resolve other racial disparities. The department outlined the new developments in a report sent to Congress on Tuesday and obtained by NPR, pledging that it would continue to work "to ensure that racial disparities are reduced to the greatest extent possible."

"When using factors with criminal history, prison discipline, and education, the tool is almost inevitably going to have disparities — unless they correct for systemic biases in policing, prosecution, corrections, and education," said Melissa Hamilton, a law professor at the University of Surrey who has closely followed the process.

NPR dissected problems with Pattern in a report earlier this year. It uncovered sloppy math mistakes and other flaws that put thousands of prisoners in the wrong risk category and treated them differently in part because of their ethnic backgrounds. The Justice Department will roll out the new version of Pattern early next month, which it said "will neither exacerbate nor solve these racial bias issues." But the department said it was making other adjustments that could translate into a real difference for people of color in prison.

A law called the First Step Act that passed with bipartisan majorities during the Trump administration offers people in prison a path to early release, by earning time credits for performing work and taking educational classes behind bars. Only low and minimum risk prisoners are eligible for those programs, so how the Bureau of Prisons assesses risk has major consequences for their lives and their release plans.

In its new report, DOJ said it would make no changes to how it evaluates violent recidivism risks, saying that measure provided an essential check for "public safety." Instead, the department shifted the boundaries between other risk levels for its general recidivism algorithm. DOJ estimated that 36 percent more Black men and 26 percent more Hispanic men might now qualify as minimum or low risk, with smaller increases for Black and Hispanic women in prison.

UPDATE: I am pretty sure the report referenced in this NPR piece is this one just released by the Justice Department titled simply "First Step Act Annual Report."  As stated at the start of the executive summary: "This Report reflects the ongoing efforts of the Department of Justice (the Department) to make the goals of the First Step Act a reality and summarizes the Department’s activities in that respect during the period since the publication of the last annual Report, in December 2020."

Discouraging update on various sentencing and prison reform bills from inside the Beltway

This new Politico article, "Criminal justice reform faces political buzzsaw as GOP hones its midterm message," provides an unsurprising, but still disappointing, update on the current political realities facing a set of small but important sentencing and prison reform bills pending in Congress. I recommend the whole piece, and here are excerpts:

The Senate delivered former President Donald Trump a bipartisan criminal justice reform deal shortly after the last midterm election.  Staging a sequel for President Joe Biden this year won’t be so easy.

Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, are still in talks over finalizing a package that would serve as a more narrow follow-up to the 2018 prison and sentencing reform bill known as the First Step Act.  But both senior senators acknowledge it’s not a glide path forward, particularly given the GOP messaging on rising crime ahead of the 2022 midterms — a focus that was on full display during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court hearings last month.

“That’s dampened the interest in doing what we call the Second Step Act, but we’re still seeing what can be worked out,” Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a brief interview.  He added that if Democrats agree to certain provisions related to law enforcement, “that might make it possible to get something done.”  Durbin (D-Ill.), meanwhile, said he’s concerned about the bill’s prospects, particularly given Republican accusations during Jackson’s confirmation hearings that the justice-in-waiting was soft on crime.  The Judiciary chair ranked criminal justice as high on his list of priorities, though he said legislation addressing crime and law enforcement “may be just as challenging as immigration” — a famously tough area of bipartisan compromise on Capitol Hill.

While both Durbin and Grassley say the sequel legislation is necessary to fully implement and expand on the sentencing updates in the First Step law, the campaign-season politics surrounding criminal justice reform threaten broader GOP support. Though 38 Republican senators backed the 2018 bill, it took Trump’s personal appeals to get many on board. And with Democrats in full control of Washington, Republicans’ emerging midterm message — that liberals are to blame for rising violent crime — could make sentencing changes that much harder.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee and a close adviser to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has yet to review the proposal but predicted a tough road ahead. “Particularly given the spike in violence in the inner cities, it would probably be controversial depending on what the specific proposal was,” Cornyn said. “The timing is not great given the closeness of the midterms and the primaries that still remain to be run.”

The Judiciary panel already passed the foundation for Durbin and Grassley’s potential criminal justice reform package last year. It would give inmates who were sentenced prior to the First Step law’s passage the ability to petition for its reduced sentencing guidelines, applying them retroactively if approved. Another bill included in it would increase eligibility for a program that allows certain elderly prisoners to serve the rest of their sentences at home. There’s also discussion around expanding the scope of a federal carjacking statute, according to a GOP Judiciary Committee aide....

A separate but related criminal justice push in the upper chamber, however, illustrates that reform advocates aren’t exactly pinning their hopes on a broader agreement this year. Supporters of eliminating the long-standing federal sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses originally discussed including that provision in the committee’s bigger proposal.

Now advocates for change want the Senate to move a standalone bill on the crack-cocaine disparity, citing its support from 11 Senate Republicans — enough to overcome a filibuster. “They have been working on that package for the better part of a year now, and the [standalone bill] is ready right now,” said Holly Harris, executive director of the Justice Action Network, who is urging the Senate to act shortly after the Easter recess. “My hope is obviously that we can see the [standalone bill] through to fruition here. I mean, it’s literally on the goal line.”... Backers of the legislation eliminating the crack-cocaine disparity, which passed the House overwhelmingly in September, range from conservative Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. It’s backed by law enforcement groups, including the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the National District Attorneys Association.

While Schumer hasn’t yet laid out a timeline for when he’d bring the crack-cocaine disparity bill to the floor, members of the Congressional Black Caucus earlier this month wrote to him and Durbin urging the Senate to consider the bill “without delay.” The legislation is a top priority for the caucus, which has already faced setbacks on police reform and voting rights bills. And proponents of the reform are framing it as legislation about “fairness” instead of crime, highlighting support from Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

But Senate aides on both sides of the aisle warn that despite the disparity-closing bill’s bipartisan support, it could still face a challenging path to final passage, including a potentially arduous debate over amendments. Republicans who oppose the bill would almost certainly want to force vulnerable Senate Democrats to take tough amendment votes amid reports of rising violent crime in major cities and the approaching November election. Grassley, who is not a co-sponsor, has also outlined concerns about whether there would be enough Republican support in the Senate to get the legislation over the finish line. While the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the crack-cocaine disparity bill last year, it has yet to schedule a markup.

Meanwhile, Durbin isn’t giving up on his broader criminal justice reform package. At least not yet. While the Jackson hearings highlighted the “extremes” of GOP opposition, he said he remains hopeful that “there are fair-minded Republicans and Democrats who can form the basis of an agreement.”

Sigh. From the very start of this Congress, many folks have been stressing (see here and here) that the criminal justice arena as presenting opportunities for bipartisan reforms.  And nearly a year ago, as noted here, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act of 2021, the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act of 2021 and the First Step Implementation Act of 2021.  Since then, the House in September 2021 passed, as detailed here, the EQUAL Act by a margin of 361-66 and last month passed, as detailed here, the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act of 2021 by a margin of 405-12.  Not sure we can expect more bipartisan agreement than these votes reflect, and so I continue to believe the relatively modest reforms in all of these bills could have and should have been low-hanging fruit for bipartisan legislative achievements in this Congress.  Instead, it now appears that none of these bills may get to the finish line in this Congress. 

I understand fully the challenging politics presented by rising homicide rates and other crime challenges now facing the nation.  But these reforms are all sound tweaks to a federal sentencing and prison system that have rightly garnered strong bipartisan support because they are modest and sensible reforms that are long-overdue and have very little to do with violent offenders.  The apparent failure of this Congress to get any of these bills enacted so far strikes me as much more a story of problematic policy priorities than of modern crime politics.  Sigh.

US Sentencing Commission releases big new report titled "Compassionate Release: The Impact of the First Step Act & COVID-19 Pandemic"

The US Sentencing Commission indicated that is was working on a big new compassionate release report, and I am pleased to see from my email inbox that it was released today.  Here is the text about the report that was in the email I received:

The United States Sentencing Commission (“Commission”) today released a new report that examines trends in compassionate release during fiscal year 2020 in light of the enactment of the First Step Act of 2018, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer, Acting Chair of the Commission, stated “I am pleased that the Commission has issued this comprehensive report on compassionate release trends in fiscal year 2020. This report builds on the Commission’s significant work in this area, including a report on the first year of implementation of the First Step Act and the Commission’s previously released quarterly data reports analyzing motions for compassionate release.”

Acting Chair Breyer noted, “Prior to the enactment of the First Step Act, only the Director of the Bureau of Prisons could file compassionate release motions. The First Step Act enables defendants to file these motions directly in federal court after exhausting administrative requirements. These changes, coupled with the pandemic, resulted predictably in a dramatic increase in both motions for and grants of compassionate release.”

According to the report, in fiscal year 2020, courts decided 7,014 compassionate release motions, granting compassionate release to one-quarter (25.7%) of those offenders. The number of offenders granted relief increased more than twelvefold compared to 2019 — the year immediately following passage of the First Step Act. Courts cited health risks associated with COVID-19 as at least one reason for relief in 71.5% of grants.

“Unfortunately, in the intervening time between enactment of the First Step Act and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commission lost its quorum, rendering it unable to amend the compassionate release policy statement. The absence of this guidance has resulted in a lack of uniformity in how compassionate release motions are considered and applied across the country,” said Judge Breyer. The Report identified considerable variability in the application of compassionate release across the country among those offenders in the study group—ranging from a grant-rate high of 47.5% in the First Circuit to a low of 13.7% in the Fifth Circuit.

“This report underscores why it is crucial for the Commission to regain a quorum to again have the ability to address important policy issues in the criminal justice system, such as compassionate release,” added Breyer. “Nevertheless, I am proud of the extensive work the Commission did to compile this insightful data. I believe this report will provide valuable information to lawmakers, the Courts, advocacy organizations, and the American public.”

This full USSC report, available here, runs 86 pages and I hope to find time in the coming days to highlight a variety of findings from the report. The USSC has created this two-page infographic about the report with a few data highlights, and this USSC webpage provides an overview and an extended list of "key findings."

Though I am VERY excited to dig into this report and look forward to exploring what lessons these data may have for any possible revision of guidelines and practices related to compassionate release, I am a bit disappointed that this new USSC report only covers developments and data through September 2020.  Though these data capture the many developments through the first part of the COVID pandemic, there still had then not been any significant circuit rulings about the operation of compassionate release and other USSC data runs have detailed that there were an additional 10,000 motions and about 1500 addition compassionate release grants in just the six months after September 2020.  I fully understand why the USSC could not do this kind of detailed report on all cases up to the present, but everyone should not lose sight of the fact that this new report is already somewhat dated because it only captures data through September 2020.

Taking a look at compassionate release record of one SCOTUS short-lister

I recall seeing a few weeks ago a notable Twitter thread about the compassionate release record of Judge J. Michelle Childs, who is on Prez Biden's SCORUS short list.  I see now that Matthew Ahn has turned his analysis into this new Inquest piece, headlined "No Compassion: Judge Michelle Childs’ many denials of compassionate release signal a carceralism that should have no place on the Supreme Court." I recommend the piece in full, and here are portions:

[R]equests for compassionate release in recent years have required judges to confront the horrors of pandemic incarceration and the added harshness of a sentence that usually did not contemplate COVID-19.  And judges have wide discretion to reduce a sentence; the reduced sentence is not subject to the harsh mandatory minimums enshrined in federal law.  Despite this, judges often sidestep the question and conclude that things haven’t changed enough since sentencing, either in the urgency of an inmate’s situation or in the work they’ve done on themselves to grow despite that situation.  Even if an applicant is almost done serving their sentence or has been actively participating in prison programs for several years, the odds are long — only 18 percent of compassionate release motions were granted in 2020 and early 2021.

These low rates of compassion seem hard to square with the basic nature of a pandemic that has torn through prisons at rates far more dangerous than in the broader population. Even then, it’s hard to overturn denials of compassionate release on appeal, given the broad discretion the law affords trial judges.  Thus, a mixed record containing some grants and some denials of compassionate release might be tolerable if the judge is actually considering the arguments and agreeing to some reductions.  It’s harder to stomach if the judge isn’t granting any motions.    

Based on her 23 COVID-related compassionate release rulings available on Westlaw, Judge Childs falls into that latter category....

When I set out to examine Judge Childs’ record in this setting, I was not expecting every case she considered to end in compassionate release.  For many of them, her hands are tied because the applicant either hasn’t made the proper requests to the BOP prior to asking the judge, as the law requires, or hasn’t submitted any supporting information. Judge Childs’ denials in those cases are unsurprising to me.

But I did not expect to find nothing but denials.  And not just denials — Judge Childs has never, in any of these available decisions, ruled for anyone on either of the two steps. That’s unlike many other judges, who will often find extraordinary and compelling reasons but deny based on the § 3553 factors.  In other words, Judge Childs’ record is a genuine outlier that is especially punitive and carceral when it comes to evaluating requests for compassionate release.  And it’s not just that she is from South Carolina, either.  The grant rate in Judge Childs’ district is 18 percent, which is right at the national average.  She’s an outlier compared both to the country and her state.    

Federal prison population dips down a bit and is now reported at 153,053

Just as it is likely foolish for persons with long-term investment plans to spend too much time looking at daily stock market numbers, it is likely foolish that I have become obsessed again with weekly federal prison population data ever since the Department of Justice last month, as noted here, announced its rules for implementing "the Time Credits program required by the First Step Act."  As regular readers may recall, the retroactive implementation of those credits led to the reduction of the federal prison population by about 3% in just a few weeks.  But then, as noted here, the federal Bureau of Prisons' weekly updated report revealed a return to increasing prison population numbers in early February.  And, since the federal prison population slowly climbed through 2021 (after big drops in the early pandemic days), I have been speculating that slow and steady prison population growth in 2022 would reflect a bit of "returning to normal."

But, just to ensure nobody thinks there are predictable trends here, the newest latest BOP report of the federal prison population, this on-line report of "Total Federal Inmates," now clocks in at 153,053 as of February 17, 2022.  That number is roughly 250 inmates lower than two weeks ago.  I suspect there is no simple explanation for the recent ups and downs, but this new date now (foolishly?) makes me a bit less pessimistic that the Biden era is destined to be marked by a steady increase in the federal prison population absent FIRST STEP Act events.

That all said, as we approach the President's Day weekend, it is worth recalling that the Joe Biden campaign includes promises to "take bold action to reduce our prison population" and to "broadly use his clemency power for certain non-violent and drug crimes."  Thirteen months into this administration, I am unaware of any bold action taken by Prez Biden in this arena and he has yet to use his clemency power a single time, let alone broadly.

Prior recent related posts:

• Thousands of federal prisoners finally to get FIRST STEP Act credits as DOJ implements earned time rules
• Helpful FAMM "Explainer" talks through DOJ rule for implementing earned time credits under FIRST STEP Act
• Due surely to implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits, federal prison population drops by nearly 4,000 in one week 
• In week two of implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits, federal prison population drops another 550
• Federal prison population creeping up again after initial application of FIRST STEP earned-time credits

Deepening circuit split, First Circuit embraces broad view of sentence reduction authority under 3582(c)(1)(A)

I have not consistently blogged about every circuit ruling concerning the nature and scope of authority that district judges now have to reduced sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) after the FIRST STEP Act.  Suffice it to say that these issues are so contested that they have created an intra-circuit splits in the Sixth Circuit as well as broader divisions across multiple circuits.  But I was moved to blog on this topic again because the First Circuit weighed in earlier this week in US v. Ruvalcaba, NO. 21-1064 (1st Cir. Feb. 15, 2022) (available here) through an opinion that effective reviews the legal landscape on its way to reaching this basic holding: 

After careful consideration, we hold that a district court — when adjudicating a prisoner-initiated motion for compassionate release — is not bound by the Sentencing Commission's current policy statement. We further hold that such a court may consider the FSA's non-retroactive changes in sentencing law on an individualized basis, grounded in a defendant's particular circumstances, to determine whether an extraordinary and compelling reason exists for compassionate release.

The second part of this holding is one that has particularly divided circuit courts, and I was pleased to see this textualist analysis from the majority opinion in support of its conclusion:

Nowhere has Congress expressly prohibited district courts from considering non-retroactive changes in sentencing law like those in section 401 of the FSA. Such a prohibition cannot be deduced from section 3582(c)(1)(A)'s requirement that a court consider the section 3553(a) factors when granting a sentence reduction. No part of this requirement suggests that a district court is precluded from considering issues relevant to those sentencing factors at the separate step of determining whether an extraordinary and compelling reason exists. Were this the case, there would have been no reason for Congress to caution that rehabilitation — a relevant consideration in the section 3553(a) inquiry — could not constitute an extraordinary and compelling reason....

On the whole, given the language that Congress deliberately chose to employ, we see no textual support for concluding that such changes in the law may never constitute part of a basis for an extraordinary and compelling reason. We are, moreover, reluctant to infer that Congress intended such a categorical and unwritten exclusion in light of its specific statutory exclusion regarding rehabilitation.

In addition to the effective majority opinion, Ruvalcaba also has a notable extended dissent by Judge Barron in which he highlights another older extreme sentencing cases from the First Circuit — an remarkable case in which, as noted here, the entire First Circuit issued a remarkable opinion urging Supreme Court review while denying en banc review — which would seem to now have another chance to be addressed via 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) thanks to Ruvalcaba. 

Spotlighting the ugly problem of federal prosecutors seeking waivers of future statutory rights to seek compassionate release

In this post a couple of years ago, I flagged an opinion by US District Judge Charles Breyer in US v. Funez Osorto, 445 F. Supp. 3d 103 (N.D. Cal. 2020), in which he rejected a plea agreement based on a provision that sought to dramatically limit the defendants' statutory rights to pursue future compassionate release motions.  Today I see this new NPR article discussing complaints about this practice, and here are excerpts:

Federal prosecutors have been seeking to limit defendants' rights to win compassionate release from prison in plea negotiations across the country, a practice that advocates say undermines the intent of Congress and produces cruel outcomes.

Two advocacy groups — Families Against Mandatory Minimums and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers — asked Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco on Tuesday to prohibit U.S. attorneys from including the "pernicious" language in plea agreements.

In a copy of their letter exclusively provided to NPR, the groups said at least six jurisdictions around the nation are using the provisions, either barring defendants from filing any motions for early release because of extraordinary medical or family conditions or limiting them to only one such request and barring appeals....

The Justice Department had no comment on the advocates' letter.

Compassionate release is designed to give people in prison facing extraordinary or compelling circumstances a way to seek early release.  The Bureau of Prisons rarely approved such requests, so in 2018 Congress gave prisoners the ability to petition a federal court for freedom, under the First Step Act. More than 4,000 people have used that provision to win release....

Well over 90% of federal prosecutions end in guilty pleas, so the language in plea agreements carries enormous impact. "Individuals pleading guilty cannot know if their future holds a terminal medical condition, the death of the sole caregiver for their children, among many other tragic circumstances," said Shanna Rifkin, deputy general counsel of FAMM.

I have long thought that nearly all appeals waivers, as well as related collateral review waivers, are legally problematic and ought to generally be considered void as against public policy.  Though a criminal defendant trying to secure some remedy or release through an appeal or release motion is obviously the one most directly impacted by any and all possible future litigation over his sentence, the public also has a significant interest in a sentencing system that functions without significant error and that does not spend money on incarceration ineffectively and inefficiently.  Appeal waivers insulate all sorts of potentially significant sentencing errors from scrutiny and review, and waivers of other release or collateral motions can block efforts by prisoners to soundly and properly use existing legal mechanism to secure review of potentially excessive or unnecessary prison terms.

Congress amended the procedures for sentence reduction motions known as compassionate release through the FIRST STEP Act of 2018 precisely because it concluded that the executive branch in the form of BOP and DOJ could no long be trusted to be good stewards of this important sentence-review mechanism.  The amended process gives defendants, after seeking BOP support for a motion, the statutory to bring a motion directly to the judiciary.  Any efforts by the executive branch to reclaim sole authority over such motions though plea provisions runs directly contrary to what Congress duly provided in law as the new policy and procedure for these matters.  Consequently, such waivers should be, in my view, deemed unenforceable and void as against the public policy enacted by Congress via FIRST STEP.

Federal prison population creeping up again after initial application of FIRST STEP earned-time credits

As noted in this prior post, the Department of Justice last month announced its rules for implementing "the Time Credits program required by the First Step Act."  DOJ provided for retroactive application of these credits, which produced a notable decline in the overall federal prison population.  Specifically, as indicated in this post, over the last two full weeks of January, the federal inmate population dropped nearly 3% down to 153,293 "Total Federal Inmates" on January 27 from a count of 157,596 on January 13.  

But on February 3, 2022, the federal Bureau of Prisons updated here its report of "Total Federal Inmates," and that number now reads at 153,316.  In other words, after the initial implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits dropped the federal prison population, this population total now is starting to creeping up again slightly.  And because the federal prison population was steadily creeping up throughout most of 2021 — an increase of nearly 6000 from a low of 151,646 inmates as of January 21, 2021 — I will be continuing to keep a close watch on where the federal prison population might be headed the rest of this year.  

Prior recent related posts:

• Thousands of federal prisoners finally to get FIRST STEP Act credits as DOJ implements earned time rules
• Helpful FAMM "Explainer" talks through DOJ rule for implementing earned time credits under FIRST STEP Act
• Due surely to implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits, federal prison population drops by nearly 4,000 in one week 
• In week two of implementation of FIRST STEP earned-time credits, federal prison population drops another 550