Rapid Spread of Delta Variant Prompts DOJ Lockdown Memo; No Movement on New Sentence Relief Bills; Appellate Updates
by Derek Gilna
The newest DOJ memos outlining the newest "solutions" to the rapid spread of the Delta Variant in federal prisons tells you all you need to know about why many prison employees are quitting or retiring in record numbers. Of course, these same employees ignored decades of agency inefficiency and double-talk when it only harmed or degraded prisoners, but when employees fell sick and died because of incredible mismanagement, that is another. So in place of 2020 DOJ "Action Plans" that failed to contain Covid in 2020 , we instead have "a color-coded tiered approach that will permit operation to continue in a safe, secure manner."
Make no mistake; the danger with the Delta variant is not only its ability to spread quickly, especially among the unvaccinated, but also that the vaccinated public is weary of the never-ending COVID crisis, and is instead focusing on the wall-to-wall coverage federal governmental bureaucracy's newest fiasco of incompetence on full display in Afghanistan. Legislative progress on the new sentence-relief bills has ground to a halt.
"Americans
have entered a new, disheartening phase of the pandemic: when they realize that
Covid-19 is not disappearing anytime soon. A country that had been waiting for
the virus to be over has been forced to recalibrate. 'We can’t expect it to go
away where we never have to think about it anymore,' said Emily Martin, a public
health researcher at the
Data from federal prisons shows that the short-handed and over-stressed DOJ central office is again gambling with the lives and health of its detainees by attempting to fight disease with a public-relations campaign, while again undercounting institutional infections. Aliceville has dozens of identified cases, and many others who are suffering because they do not want to be isolated where they will not be properly cared for in any event. One says, " they have never given tests here." The source: an officer who brought it in from an area where ER's and ICUs are already filled with unvaccinated COVID cases.
Carswell is
in a similar predicament. Once again, a "medical center," filled with
the most-vulnerable, is loaded with new cases, perhaps as many as 50, and 5
staff, with reportedly two new deaths, and still more buses arriving. Prisoners
complain that they have inadequate cleaning supplies and unmasked guards
circulating from unit to unit, a situation common in all prisons. Other cases:
Although DOJ constantly touts its prison vaccination plan, there is grave doubt about the potency of vaccines administered by a medical staff that seems to be hard-wired to minimized the seriousness of prisoner health problems in all medical records (especially those submitted to federal courts) , and trained to slow-walk necessary outside life-saving and life-prolonging specialty care. And even those few shot that were given to prisoners will loss effectiveness in the Fall, and have to be readministered.
"
The only good news, never discussed in the mainstream media, is that CARES will likely be with us for the foreseeable future, and DOJ officials continue to release people, ESPECIALLY those have filed compassionate releases. Those on home confinement should also file CRs without delay.
In US v Robinson, 20-1947, (8th Cir. 8-18-21), the Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendant's motion for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act of 2018, concluding that the district court erred in determining that defendant remains subject to a mandatory life sentence. The court explained that defendant's offense of conviction—not the underlying drug quantity—determines his applicable statutory sentencing range. In this case, the district court erred in determining that defendant remained subject to a mandatory life sentence based on defendant's conduct rather than the offense of conviction, and the district court erroneously concluded that relief was categorically unavailable because of the drug quantity. The court remanded for the district court to determine whether to exercise its discretion in imposing a reduced sentence.
In US v. Prigan, 18-30238, D.C. No. 2:18-cr-00123-SMJ-1, ( 9th Cir. 8-16-21), the panel vacated a sentence for illegally possessing firearms, and remanded for resentencing, in a case in which the district court determined that the defendant’s prior conviction for Hobbs Act robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(1) is a “crime of violence” under United States Sentencing Guidelines § 4B1.2(a). The panel held that Hobbs Act robbery is not a crime of violence under § 4B1.2(a). "See United States v. Green, 996 F.3d 176, 184 (4th Cir. 2021); Bridges v. United States, 991 F.3d 793, 800 (7th Cir. 2021); United States v. Eason, 953 F.3d 1184, 1194 (11th Cir. 2020); United States v. Rodriguez, 770 F. App’x 18, 21–22 (3d Cir. 2019); United States v. Camp, 903 F.3d 594, 604 (6th Cir. 2018); United States v. O’Connor, 874 F.3d 1147, 1158 (10th Cir. 2017)." Hobbs Act robbery, which covers using force or threatening to use force against persons or property, sweeps more broadly than § 4B1.2(a)’s force clause, § 4B1.2(a)’s enumerated offense of robbery, and § 4B1.2(a)’s enumerated offense of extortion—none of whose crime-of-violence definitions covers using force or threatening force against property. The panel held that the error is not harmless, because the district court provided no explanation for varying from the correct Guidelines range, let alone the extent of such variance.
Be not afraid and let not your heart be troubled.
Derek Gilna, Director, JD, MARJ,
dgilna1948@yahoo.com (English newsletter and
federallc_esp@yahoo.com, Spanish newsletter, but NO inquiries.
