One Year After Passage of First Step, New Year Holds Prospect of Additional Relief
by Derek Gilna
Although inter-party Washington battles get the headlines, steady progress is being made toward additional sentence relief. With Congress and the President facing an election in eleven months, the pressure is on for more "big-ticket" legislative accomplishments for incumbents to convince voters that they should remain in office.
Two groups NOT looking forward to the New Year are the bloated and inefficient law enforcement and federal prison bureaucracies, which have both feasted for decades, but are now facing unprecedented scrutiny and budget cutbacks.
For decades lobbyists pushing mass-incarceration agenda ruled the halls of Congress and the White House, but no more. They are outnumbered and overawed by dozens, if not hundreds of influential advocates and non-profits whose opinions are now sought out by both Congress and the White House, and if they have their way, will soon convert correctional facilities into institutions of real education and training, pushing aside the "lock-em-up" old guard.
Passage of First Step Act was the huge game-changer. Just a few numbers to prove that: Fair Sentencing / Retroactive Sentence Reductions: 2,443 Orders Granted; Elderly Offender Home Confinement: 380 Approved; Compassionate Releases / Reduction in Sentences: 117 Approved; Ready to Work Initiative: 20 Contacts to BOP have been made; Volunteer Participation: +1,700 Increase in volunteers since December 2018.Thousands more cases are in the pipeline.
What form will, if you will, "Next Step" take? If Senators like Lindsay Graham have their way, implementation of FSA will eventually be removed from DOJ control: the evidence is that bureaucrats are already doing their best to delay FSA implementation. It has been suggested that a new Parole Commission, independent of DOJ, handle the process. Meanwhile, judges are holding he government to account for FSA opposition.
In US V Manzano, 18-3430, (2d Cir. 12-18-19), the court held in a SO case that the district court's instruction to the jury that they could render a verdict NOT in accordance with the law was improper, but that the government does not possess a clear and indisputable right to have excluded any evidence of sentencing consequences. The case is highly significant for several reason, but mostly for the fact that judges are clearly more aware of the Sixth Amendment rights of people-and juries-having authority to know the consequences of their decision. (See: US v Haymond.)
In US v. Hall, 07-3036 (DC Cir. 12-12-19), the court threw out a money laundering conspiracy charge, in a mortgage fraud case, where the conduct was already encompassed by the bank fraud charge, and remanded for resentencing.
Best wishes of the season to all, and remember, let not your heart be troubled.
Federal Legal Center, Inc.
Derek A. Gilna, JD, Director
113 McHenry Rd. #173,
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089
(Also in Indiana)
dgilna1948@yahoo.com
