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A thoughtful call for Congress to slightly increase federal good-time credit

By Douglas A. Berman

Steve Sady, the public defender who for years argued for a defendant-friendly interpretation of the federal statute providing for 15% good time credit for prisoners, has this new commentary in the National Law Journal.  The piece is headlined "Too much time in prison," and here is how it starts and ends: On June 7, my federal public defender office had the disturbing experience of losing Barber v. Thomasin the U.S. Supreme Court, a case that ? if the outcome had been different ? would have prevented up to 36,000 years of federal overincarceration, saving taxpayers up to $951 million.  The issue was whether the federal statute that allowed federal prisoners to earn up to 54 days of good-time credits for each year of their sentences meant that a prisoner could reduce the sentence imposed by up to 15%...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 29, 2010 (boomark / email).