The Brennan Center for Justice, which is heavily financed by George Soros, has submitted a letter to the governors of all fifty states urging them to use executive action to “release as many people as possible from incarceration” due to coronavirus fears “provided they do not pose serious public safety threats.”
The letter cited concern that the U.S. prison population could face greater risk of illness and death than the general public due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
The Brennan Center recommended that all governors use the power of clemency where they can.
The document states:
Ideally, people who are older, medically compromised, or nearing the end of their prison terms could have their sentences commuted to time served and be released outright. We urge you to grant the broadest relief to the largest group of people possible, but should this prove impracticable, we urge you to consider clemency relief in other forms, such as reprieves, which temporarily suspend a sentence, or conditional pardons.
Woke stunt goes horribly wrong as Michigan Dems open convention with brutal ‘land acknowledgment’
White House brings receipts after media claims noncriminal ICE arrests ‘soaring’: ‘False narratives’
Hasan Piker’s Claim He Doesn’t Hate America Clashes With That Time He Declared ‘I Hate America’
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll Resigns After Internal Disagreements
Ex-House Freedom Caucus chair says GOP isn’t ‘a conservative party anymore,’ but Democrats are ‘worse’
FLASHBACK: Mamdani torched for recycling 9/11 tributes after years of near-identical posts
AOC’s pivot for 2028 has begun. Will it work?
2 Grand Canyon flooding victims photographed on hiking trip in days before deaths
Teen arrested in girl’s murder one year after police said she accidentally shot herself while recording video
Trump Announces Plan to Help Ranchers Going Through Beef Market ‘Hell’
Top election schemes roiling key midterm races as both parties accuse rivals of trickery
Watch: Markwayne Mullin Goes Off on Reporter Who Tried to Downplay the Danger of Illegal Alien Truckers
Democrats’ generational battle erupts as 80-year-old senator faces younger challenger
Georgia cop kills beloved pet donkey in his own pasture as heartbroken owner demands justice: ‘We miss him’
Lindsay Clancy’s future could rest with ‘prosecution doctors’ as case echoes infamous Maine killings: expert
The Brennan Center cited its own research to claim that extending clemency to “especially vulnerable” prisoners “will not jeopardize public safety.”
It claimed:
Our own research has shown that state prison sentences are often too long to begin with, and that roughly 14 percent of imprisoned people have “served sufficiently long prison terms and could likely be released within the next year with little risk to public safety.”
Moreover, researchers have shown, time and time again, that the likelihood of recidivism plummets as people age. One seminal study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that “offenders over sixty years old at the time of release had a recidivism rate of 16.0 percent” —roughly a quarter the rate of people released before age 21.
Clemency relief in other forms should also be considered, Brennan advocated, suggesting the use of conditional pardons or reprieves to temporarily suspend a prison sentence.
For convicts who can’t be outright granted clemency, the Brennan Center urged governors to use their “unique executive powers to further shrink the prison population as much as possible at this critical time.”
One proposal was to expand the criteria for sentence reductions with merit time or granting additional credits beyond the currently used “good-time” reductions.
Woke stunt goes horribly wrong as Michigan Dems open convention with brutal ‘land acknowledgment’
White House brings receipts after media claims noncriminal ICE arrests ‘soaring’: ‘False narratives’
Hasan Piker’s Claim He Doesn’t Hate America Clashes With That Time He Declared ‘I Hate America’
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll Resigns After Internal Disagreements
Ex-House Freedom Caucus chair says GOP isn’t ‘a conservative party anymore,’ but Democrats are ‘worse’
FLASHBACK: Mamdani torched for recycling 9/11 tributes after years of near-identical posts
AOC’s pivot for 2028 has begun. Will it work?
2 Grand Canyon flooding victims photographed on hiking trip in days before deaths
Teen arrested in girl’s murder one year after police said she accidentally shot herself while recording video
Trump Announces Plan to Help Ranchers Going Through Beef Market ‘Hell’
Top election schemes roiling key midterm races as both parties accuse rivals of trickery
Watch: Markwayne Mullin Goes Off on Reporter Who Tried to Downplay the Danger of Illegal Alien Truckers
Democrats’ generational battle erupts as 80-year-old senator faces younger challenger
Georgia cop kills beloved pet donkey in his own pasture as heartbroken owner demands justice: ‘We miss him’
Lindsay Clancy’s future could rest with ‘prosecution doctors’ as case echoes infamous Maine killings: expert
Another recommendation was for delayed sentencing for those who have been convicted but haven’t yet been put in prison.
The Brennan Center for Justice, located at NYU School of Law, is heavily financed by Soros’s Open Society Foundations and is the recipient of numerous Open Society grants.
While the Brennan Center’s recommendations for clemency and sentence reduction are expansive, the progressive group is not alone in advocating for such reprieve.
Advocates, criminal attorneys and family members of those incarcerated have urged the harder hit states to release older prisoners and those who at higher risk for coronavirus complications due to underlying health conditions.
California already began fast tracking the release of about 3,500 inmates serving sentences for nonviolent crimes and who are also due to be paroled within 60 days.
The New York Post reported that thousands of state and federal inmates are using coronavirus fears to push for early release, with their attorneys citing underlying health conditions.
Woke stunt goes horribly wrong as Michigan Dems open convention with brutal ‘land acknowledgment’
White House brings receipts after media claims noncriminal ICE arrests ‘soaring’: ‘False narratives’
Hasan Piker’s Claim He Doesn’t Hate America Clashes With That Time He Declared ‘I Hate America’
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll Resigns After Internal Disagreements
Ex-House Freedom Caucus chair says GOP isn’t ‘a conservative party anymore,’ but Democrats are ‘worse’
FLASHBACK: Mamdani torched for recycling 9/11 tributes after years of near-identical posts
AOC’s pivot for 2028 has begun. Will it work?
2 Grand Canyon flooding victims photographed on hiking trip in days before deaths
Teen arrested in girl’s murder one year after police said she accidentally shot herself while recording video
Trump Announces Plan to Help Ranchers Going Through Beef Market ‘Hell’
Top election schemes roiling key midterm races as both parties accuse rivals of trickery
Watch: Markwayne Mullin Goes Off on Reporter Who Tried to Downplay the Danger of Illegal Alien Truckers
Democrats’ generational battle erupts as 80-year-old senator faces younger challenger
Georgia cop kills beloved pet donkey in his own pasture as heartbroken owner demands justice: ‘We miss him’
Lindsay Clancy’s future could rest with ‘prosecution doctors’ as case echoes infamous Maine killings: expert
“Everyone from killers, drug traffickers and gang members to mobsters, fraudsters and accused rapists are making a bid to get out of the clink,” the New York Post reported.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr expedited a directive to release certain inmates to home confinement if they are at high risk for coronavirus, with focus on federal inmates in Connecticut, Louisiana and Ohio.
Eligibility under Barr’s directive would be determined by age, vulnerability to coronavirus, prison conduct, whether they have a re-entry plan and whether the inmates would be a danger to their communities.
“We are experiencing significant levels of infection at several of our facilities,” Barr stated. “We have to move with dispatch in using home confinement when appropriate to move vulnerable inmates out these institutions.”
“Some offenses, such as sex offenses, will render an inmate ineligible for home detention,” the directive added. “Other serious offenses would weigh more heavily against consideration for home detention.”
In a second memo, Barr encouraged prosecutors to consider coronavirus risks when weighing bail and whether to send a defendant to jail while awaiting trial.
Woke stunt goes horribly wrong as Michigan Dems open convention with brutal ‘land acknowledgment’
White House brings receipts after media claims noncriminal ICE arrests ‘soaring’: ‘False narratives’
Hasan Piker’s Claim He Doesn’t Hate America Clashes With That Time He Declared ‘I Hate America’
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll Resigns After Internal Disagreements
Ex-House Freedom Caucus chair says GOP isn’t ‘a conservative party anymore,’ but Democrats are ‘worse’
FLASHBACK: Mamdani torched for recycling 9/11 tributes after years of near-identical posts
AOC’s pivot for 2028 has begun. Will it work?
2 Grand Canyon flooding victims photographed on hiking trip in days before deaths
Teen arrested in girl’s murder one year after police said she accidentally shot herself while recording video
Trump Announces Plan to Help Ranchers Going Through Beef Market ‘Hell’
Top election schemes roiling key midterm races as both parties accuse rivals of trickery
Watch: Markwayne Mullin Goes Off on Reporter Who Tried to Downplay the Danger of Illegal Alien Truckers
Democrats’ generational battle erupts as 80-year-old senator faces younger challenger
Georgia cop kills beloved pet donkey in his own pasture as heartbroken owner demands justice: ‘We miss him’
Lindsay Clancy’s future could rest with ‘prosecution doctors’ as case echoes infamous Maine killings: expert
“You should now consider the medical risks associated with individuals being remanded into federal custody during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Barr wrote in the memo, which was obtained Politico. “Even with the extensive precautions we are currently taking, each time a new person is added to a jail, it presents at least some risk to the personnel who operate that facility and to the people incarcerated therein.”
Barr’s bail memo reportedly made clear that defendants who pose a public threat must be detained.
“Controlling weight should be given to public safety, and under no circumstances should those who present a risk to any person or the community be released,” Barr wrote. “COVID-19 presents real risks, but so does allowing violent gang members and child predators to roam free.”
Story cited here.
