January 26, 2022: COMPASSIONATE RELEASE and BOP COVID-19 BLOG

Quick Facts (Full BOP stats can be found here) Currently positive-testing inmates: 7,851 (down from 8,074) Currently positive-testing staff: 1,748 (up from 1,642) Recovered inmates: 46,168 (up from 45,556) Recovered staff: 9,457 (up from 9,402)

Institutions with the largest number of currently positive-testing inmates:

Yazoo City Medium FCI: 637 (down from 673)

Oakdale FCI: 368 (down from 369)

Yazoo City USP: 280

Institutions with the largest number of currently positive-testing staff:

Central Office HQ: 54 (up from 51)

Pollock USP: 48 (up from 46)

Carswell FMC: 46 (up from 44)

System-wide testing results: Presently, BOP has 134,741 federal inmates in BOP-managed institutions and 11,639 in community-based facilities. Today's stats: Completed tests: 129,011 (down from 129,677) Positive tests: 53,660 (up from 53,398)

Total vaccine doses administered: 289,312 (up from 288,561)

Case Note: Court rejects government's invitation to speculate -- in considering compassionate release application -- about the plea it would have offered defendant had § 924(c) stacking not been required in 1998 ...

In U.S. v. STEPHEN JAMES MILLS, 2022 WL 206074, at *3 (D.S.C. Jan. 24, 2022) (Norton, J.), the court, along the way to reducing defendant’s sentence for four robberies and two 924(c) counts, rejects government’s invitation to consider the charging decisions it would have made had it not been able to stack 924(c) sentences, explaining: "On April 23, 1998, Mills pleaded guilty to four counts of obstruction of interstate commerce by armed robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a) (“Hobbs Act”) and two counts of using a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). Based on Mills's criminal history, he was found to be a career offender under United States Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.” or “Guidelines”) § 4B1.1. This court sentenced Mills to a term of imprisonment of 468 months, or thirty-nine years. … The Guidelines recommended a sentence of 151 to 188 months for the Hobbs Act convictions. ECF No. 86 at 2. Based on the pre-First Step Act practice of stacking counts, the Sentencing Guidelines further mandated a sentence of 300 months (or twenty-five years) for Mills's § 924(c) convictions. Accordingly, Mills's Sentencing Guidelines range in total was 451 to 488 months.3 Mills's Sentencing Guidelines range, were he sentenced today, would look far different. To be sure, the Sentencing Guidelines would still recommend a sentence of 151 to 188 months for Mills's Hobbs Act convictions, and Mills does not argue that the sentence range for those convictions would be different. ...The government concedes that were Mills to plead guilty to the same counts that he originally pled in 1998, under the modern rule of § 924(c), Mills would face a reduced minimum sentence for those two counts. However, the government argues that such a drastically lowered sentencing range is deceptive as it would have never considered a plea within that range today. Specifically, the government contends that as part of the plea agreement, it elected not to indict Mills on eight other alleged armed robberies. The government now claims that if the modern sentencing range applied, it would have indicted Mills for all the South Carolina robberies he allegedly committed, and Mills would be indicted on thirteen counts of violating § 924(c) that alone would result in a sentence of ninety-one years. The court is unwilling to play a game of “what-ifs” with the government. As Mills appropriately observes, “the focus of a sentence reduction motion is on the sentence the defendant is serving.” ECF No. 217 at 5. The government's argument in essence is that it would have either indicted Mills on more counts if the law had been different in 1998 or that it would indict Mills on more counts if he were facing prosecution today; either way, the argument is purely hypothetical.”

Death Watch (Note: The BOP press website announces BOP COVID-related deaths here.) The BOP has announced three new COVID-related deaths, those of Adrain Robinson, 57, of FCI Coleman Medium, on January 13, 2022; Daniel Wayne Gorman, 35, of FCI Mendota, on January 19, 2022; and Sergio Negrete-Alba, 47, of FMC Butner, on January 14, 2022, bringing total Inmate fatalities to 282. Eleven of the inmates died while on home confinement. Staff deaths remain at 7.