By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – A U.S. panel on Wednesday will consider whether to expand the ability of federal prisoners to seek compassionate release and limit the ability of judges to punish people for conduct that juries acquitted them of committing.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission, the agency which sets sentencing guidelines for federal judges, could also vote to implement a key part of major gun law passed last year.
That provision would stiffen prison sentences for straw purchasers – proxy buyers who purchase a firearm on behalf of someone else, a policy change which advocates warn could disproportionately impact Black people.
The seven-member, bipartisan panel in January also proposed that terminal illness or advanced age could be considered “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for compassionate release.
The panel was hamstrung several years when it did not have a full voting quorum.
Requests for compassionate release surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 7,014 motions filed in fiscal year 2020. Those requests have not been granted on a consistent basis without the panel’s guidance.
The U.S. Department of Justice has opposed some aspects of the proposal, saying it would “greatly expand compassionate release in ways that Congress did not intend.”
The Justice Department has also opposed another proposal that would prevent judges from imposing longer prison sentences on criminal defendants for acquitted conduct.
Under current practice, a defendant who is acquitted on some counts and convicted on others could still face a harsher sentence if the judge opts to factor that acquitted conduct into how he or she calculates a prison term.
While juries must consider whether a criminal charge is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, judges may use a “preponderance of evidence,” a lower standard of proof, when sentencing a defendant.
Several cases are pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to bring an end to the practice.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Aurora Ellis)
