Legal News

Exclusion policy needs explaining, says appeals panel

By Richard Binder

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to reconsider the application for sentence reduction from Jerry Crickon, a federal prisoner in a Long Beach halfway house due for release in six months. 

Crickon, convicted of drug offenses in 2000, was offered a drug rehabilitation program two years ago but was told that, because of a 1970 voluntary manslaughter conviction, he wasn't eligible for the one-year sentence reduction other inmates could get.

Bureau of Prison rules for sentence-reduction incentive programs categorically exclude inmates with prior convictions for homicide, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The 9th Circuit panel didn't say the bureau couldn't make such exclusions, just that the bureau hadn't adequately explained its rationale for doing so.

Earlier this month a three-judge federal court panel ordered California to cut its inmate population about 25% over the next two years.

Full story here.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on August 26, 2009 (boomark / email).