Slavery in America – Private Prisons and the 13th Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment allows slavery in the United States, as long as those slaves are convicted of a crime. Private prisons actively lobby for more slaves to drive profit.
In Prison
The Difficulty on Bringing State Cases into Federal Habeas Proceedings
Federal Habeas Filings Under §2254 Filing a habeas petition is difficult and very time consuming. Filing an effective habeas petition is even harder. This is in reference to federal inmates filing for 28 U.S.C. §2255 habeas relief in federal court. A majority of these filings fail even before they get a hearing, never getting their day in …
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Dimaya Sentence Reductions via §2255
The Sentence Reduction Potential of Dimaya and Johnson On April 17, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States published an opinion in an immigration case called Sessions v. Dimaya. This case caused waves because the left-leaning justices split with right-leaning justices evenly at 4-4 and the deciding vote was the freshman justice Gorsuch. In …
What happens after sentencing?
Post-Sentencing in a Federal Criminal Case Now what? Now a defendant can feel like they are blowing in the wind without an advocate to guide them through this difficult period. Many prison consultants make a lot of money just telling people what to expect when they get to prison. We do that, too, but more …
28 U.S.C. 2255 Example – A Double Edged Sword
When it Works, Sometimes it Doesn’t In our continuing exploration of 28 U.S.C. §2255 cases, the practice of federal habeas appeals never ceases to be amazing. And confusing. Take, for instance, the case of Howard Handa. 1 United States v. Handa, 122 F.3d 690, (9th Cir. 1997) In this case, defendant Handa was sentenced for …
2255 Motion to Vacate or Set Aside Sentence
How to file a §2255 Motion? **Update** For all questions and issues concerning the recent Supreme Court decision in Sessions v. Dimaya, and how that could reduce sentences for current federal inmates who have otherwise exceeded their 1-year window, please click here. This is a very big question to answer, but the question that …
More Sentence Commutations By Obama This Week
Sentence Commutations for Drug Offenders Its a sad fact that Obama has pardoned and commuted less sentences in his presidency than any other president in modern American history. In a positive recent action, Obama issued 22 sentence commutations to federal inmates serving time for drug-related crimes. These 22 sentence commutations nearly double the number of …
Marijuana Legalization, Coram Nobis, and Federal Felonies
Legalized Pot An interesting question arose for PCR Consultants the other day. With the growing trend the United States these days to legalize pot, what would happen if the federal government actually gave up the Weed branch of its War on Drugs. Plenty of people believe that locking up citizens in the US for simple …
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Opportunity After Federal Prison
The United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey had some interesting comments about community release after incarceration. Normally, the American standard of criminal justice involves putting away the bad guys, and little else. After that, the narrative on crime and punishment simply stops. Unfortunately for that narrative, and fortunately for defendants and inmates, …
Obama Clemency Plans for Hundreds of Drug Offenders
The title of this post comes from this Yahoo News article. A new plan for Obama clemency policy is going to be official. (2017 Update: According to the Pew Research Center, former President Obama ended up granting clemency for more than 1,900 felons before he left office. More than 1,700 of these were sentence commutations …
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