Seismic Shift: Big Changes to the Sentencing Guidelines & the Country

Although we often complain about the sentencing guidelines, this week, I find myself thankful that we still live in a country that has courts and due process, in the federal criminal courts.  At least for now. 

So today, we celebrate the death of guideline departures, lament the death of due process in immigration, and worry for the future of this democracy.

That's why we start off talking about the plight of Kilmar Garcia-Abrego, a person lawfully in this country who was abducted by brownshirt immigration thugs and stolen away in the night to a concentration camp in El Salvador.  No notice. No hearing. No due process.  No contact with a lawyer or loved ones.  No prospect for release – ever. 

That’s why we start off talking about the plight of Kilmar Garcia-Abrego, a person lawfulfully in this country who was abucted by brownshirt immigration thugs and stolen away in the night to a concentration camp in El Salvador.  No notice. No hearing. No due process.  No contact with a lawyer or loved ones.  No prospect for release – ever. 

This is who we are now.  Pay attention.

 

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Kilmar Garcia Abrego: authoritarianism is here, and we are in a full constitutional crisis.  If they can do this to him, they can do it to ANYBODY… and they will.
• Lost Lore tequila!
• New changes to the Supervised Release guideline;
• A warning – if you are successful in arguing against supervised release, you could impact your client’s ability to earn early release from prison;
• The goal of S/R, in no incertain terms, is REHABILITATION!  But courts are using it as punishment, and routinely imposing prison terms for said violations.  Therefore, the new guideline amendments make clear that this is not, by default, the appropriate result!
• The death of “upward departures” and simplification of the “three step process”;
• The difference between guideline “departures” and “adjustments”;
• The vindication of the need to telling our clients’ life stories;
• Things in the “goddamn Sentencing Reform Act that were directed to the Commission 40 years ago to take into consideration when it promulgated the fucking guidelines, that it still has not done.”  (Mark’s colorful language), the biggest one being the sad state of affairs at the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
• Talk of moving BOP to DHS and the future banishment to concentration camps of US Citizens.

 

LINKS: 

"Reader-friendly" guidelines amendments from Sentencing Commission: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/amendment-process/reader-friendly-amendments/202504_prelim-rf.pdf

 

Timothy Synder's On Tyranny: 20 lessons from the 20th century:  Last episode we talked about the lesson of language (domestic terrorism).  Today we talk about not “obeying in advance” when an authoritarian begins to test the limits of his power.  If we let what is happening to Mr. Abrego Garcia and those like him, we are lost.  Here's a great video of John Lithgow reciting all 20 lessons.  Learn them.  Take action.  https://youtu.be/cXR5HLodsT8?si=KfukKSdAPEfytSLE

 

There's a new "open letter" circulating on Facebook and beyond, purportedly written by Liz Cheney.  She's not the author.  But the letter is right on. It's a blueprint for resistance.  Take a look.

https://www.facebook.com/lisa.mcmanus.77736/posts/10231541262169329?ref=embed_post 

 

Mark Allenbaugh Law Review Article:  Sentencing in Chaos: How Statistics Can Harmonize
the “Discordant Symphony”.  To D