In the News

As part of an upcoming spending and COVID-19 relief bill, elected officials have come to an agreement to restore federal Pell grants for prisoners seeking higher education.

The incoming Biden administration is expected to increase criminal prosecutions under the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, as well as rollback prior administration directives that prioritized “compliance assistance” over seeking civil or criminal penalties. The Biden administration has also announced its intention to establish an Environmental and ClimateJustice Division to help the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resource Department investigate and prosecute violators of environmental laws and regulations.

Updated September 27, 2021 – The Compilation has been updated to include cases involving inmates that have already been vaccinated or refuse to get vaccinated and cases where an inmate has been granted compassionate release while on home confinement. Attorney Tom Church has compiled a list of Compassionate Release grants and some of the key […]

The U.S. Supreme Court denied ceriorari to a petitioner seeking the Court’s determination as to what standard applies to Fourth Amendment searches at the U.S. border. The Court’s decision not to step in leaves in place a circuit split between courts that hold no probable cause or reasonable suspicion is required for law enforcement to conduct searches and those that hold there must at least be some degree of reasonable suspicion.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals became the fourth appellate circuit to hold that district courts reviewing an inmate’s motion for sentence reduction under 3582(c)(1)(A) have the independent discretion to determine if there are “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warranting the requested reduction. The Fourth Circuit joins the Second, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits in recognizing district courts’ broad discretion when reviewing requests for sentence reductions and compassionate release.

The Sixth Circuit and Seventh Circuit have joined the Second Circuit in holding that district courts considering motions for sentence reductions under 18 USC 3582(c)(1)(A) can exercise their discretion in determining whether an inmate has presented “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warranting a sentence modification.

The Marshall Project has published a helpful primer of President-Elect Joe Biden’s Criminal Justice Platform, which, if enacted, would be the most progressive criminal justice agenda in U.S. history. The article focuses on the areas of mandatory minimum sentences, cash bail, the death penalty, eliminating private prisons, and other areas.

Voters in Oregon voted to decriminalize hard drugs like cocaine and heroin while providing significant funding for treatment. Voters in Arizona, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota passed measures reforming marijuana laws, including recreational and medical marijuana.

Government officials and public data indicate there has been a dramatic increase in investigations and prosecutions of “PPP Loan Fraud,” including over 500 investigations and 73 criminal prosecutions. The Wall Street Journal reports in detail how Congress created the program to facilitate quick relief to businesses by allowing business’s to “self-certify” their need for PPP loans, and how the federal government has aggressively pursued businesses they suspect of committing PPP loan fraud by identifying certain business activities as “suspicious.”

The Department of Justice recently put out a press release stating that the total incarceration rate of state and federal inmates in 2019, at 419 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents, was the lowest the incarceration rate has been since 1995. The press release discusses the gradual increase in the incarceration rate since the 1990s and breaks down the changing trends by race and by type of crime. Given the number of inmates released during the COVID-19 pandemic, this number may continue to decrease, at least in the short term.