Hi Friends, Wednesday, April 5, was a huge day for FAMM at the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The Commission voted on a number of changes to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, including changes to compassionate release.
We are grateful to every one of you who wrote to the Commission and urged them to adopt these changes. It worked! The amendments, which will take effect on November 1, 2023, substantially expand compassionate release (also called "reduction in sentence") criteria—meaning more people in prison will be able to come home.
Here is a summary of several new, groundbreaking provisions that FAMM championed: -
Victim of abuse: This will cover survivors of physical abuse resulting in serious bodily injury or sexual abuse inflicted or directed by Bureau of Prisons (BOP) personnel. FAMM brought this shocking issue to the attention of the Commission, and urged the Department of Justice and the BOP to file reduction in sentence motions for survivors. Now, survivors will be able to seek compassionate release directly when the BOP fails to act.
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Other reasons: With this tool, judges will be able to identify unusual or unforeseen reasons warranting compassionate release, so long as the reasons are similar in gravity to the medical, geriatric, family circumstances, or sexual abuse grounds.
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Unusually long sentences: If the individual has served at least 10 years of an unusually long sentence, the individual can apply for release if there is proof that the sentence they are serving is grossly disparate (meaning significantly higher) when compared with the sentence they would receive today. This is the crown jewel of the Commission's amendments.
We will go over the changes in more detail at a later date. Again, we couldn't have done this without you, friends! Thank you so much for working with us to secure this important victory. Yours, |
