Courts around the United States have increasingly recognized that the coronavirus is an extraordinary and compelling reason warranting release of inmates. Several courts have heeded the call from legal and medical experts to release vulnerable and old inmates from inherently unsafe facilities.

This month Cara Wieneke reviews The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences by Marc Mauer and Ashley Nellis.

Congress amended 18 U.S.C. § 3582 to permit prisoners to file their own motions for compassionate release.

Risk assessment – the assessment of risk of reoffending or risk of future violent behavior – is a hot topic. However, only rarely do lawyers address the questions raised by criminal justice-related risk assessment. This finding suggests that defense lawyers may not be paying enough attention to the issue. A key issue involves addressing how the risk assessment connects the dots between a specific client’s circumstances and the factors related to reoffending and violence.

The FIRST STEP Act directly impacts accused and sentenced prisoners in myriad ways. Defense attorney Todd Bussert discusses Bureau of Prisons-related aspects of the law, including changes to the time credit calculus, avenues by which prisoners can earn both earlier pre-release transfers and placement on supervised release, and avenues to petition courts for reductions in sentence for extraordinary and compelling reasons. Bussert points out that implementation of some of the Act’s provisions may be delayed.

The decision to credit a client’s remorse may make a difference at sentencing, but remorse is difficult to assess. People are overconfident in their ability to interpret mental states and sincerity: accuracy rates are no better than chance. Because the decision whether to believe an expression of remorse is subjective, it is a fertile area in which implicit bias can flourish. Professor Eve Hanan suggests steps that advocates can take to counteract bias in remorse assessments.

Willie Herring’s case cried out for mitigation. The cry went unanswered. The 5-4 decision from the Ohio Supreme Court in Herring’s case does not break new ground. It does, however, provide important reminders about the duty of capital defense attorneys to ensure that a comprehensive mitigation investigation is conducted in every case.

Section 3A1.4 of the Sentencing Guidelines – the so-called “terrorism enhancement” – is an obstacle for defense practitioners. If applicable, the enhancement can drive a defendant’s sentence upward by a large amount. Unfortunately, the terrorism enhancement treats all offenders the same without considering their actual conduct or individual backgrounds. This article discusses two cases and the role the facts played in the applicability of the terrorism enhancement.

Over time, advocates in the capital defense arena have figured out which strategies work and which do not work. Defense lawyers in noncapital cases can learn from the strategies developed during several decades of capital representation. They can incorporate these strategies into sentencing advocacy for clients charged with drug offenses, noncapital murder, or any other crime. In noncapital cases, the offender is more likely someday to be released and returned to society. This requires more focus on development and resources for the offender that will facilitate a smooth re-entry.

In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that the practice of sentencing children to mandatory life without parole violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. In doing so, it also provided attorneys representing people facing life without parole for crimes that occurred when they were under 18 with new opportunities and obligations to present a universe of mitigating evidence that would counsel in favor of imposing some other lesser sentence. 

Do criminal practitioners truly understand what substantial assistance means? Does a motion made by the government under U.S.S.G. § 5k1.1 mean the same thing in Georgia as it means in Texas? What about between districts in the same state? A thorough analysis of the publicly available data maintained by the Sentencing Commission begins to tell a tale of vast differences in the way cooperation is treated nationwide.

Minorities Still Burdened With Mandatory Minimum Sentences (Informal Opinion)

Imagine a criminal prosecution in which a trial judge unlawfully imposed a far longer sentence on a defendant than the law prescribed. Now image that notwithstanding the universal agreement that the sentence was improperly enhanced, the defendant cannot obtain relief from the courts.

Federal Sentencing Tips Alan Ellis, Todd Bussert, and Mark Allenbaugh April 2013 40 Editor’s Note: This article is based on information in the 2012–14 edition of Federal Prison Guidebook by Alan Ellis (James Publishing). Approximately 94 percent of all federal criminal defendants plead guil

Age and health are significant mitigating factors in an increasing number of sentencings as the baby-boomer generation turns 65 — the so-called “Silver Tsunami.”¹ This is particularly true in white collar cases, which disproportionately involve offenders over 50.²