SAMARITAN NEWSLETTER – 01-06-2026

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NEW CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILLS INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS

First Step Implementation Act

The bipartisan First Step Implementation Act of 2025 aims to further implement the FSA and advance its goals. The First Step Implementation Act would further the goals of the FSA by: Allowing courts to apply the FSA sentencing reform provisions to reduce sentences imposed prior to the enactment of the FSA; broadening the safety valve provision to allow courts to sentence below a mandatory minimum for nonviolent controlled substance offenses, if the court finds the defendant’s criminal history over-represents the seriousness of the defendant’s criminal record and the likelihood of recidivism; allowing courts to reduce sentences imposed on juvenile offenders who have served more than 20 years; providing for the sealing or expungement of records of nonviolent juvenile offenses; and,

requiring the Attorney General to establish procedures ensuring that only accurate criminal records are shared for employment-related purposes.

Safer Detention Act

The bipartisan Safer Detention Act of 2025 would reauthorize and reform the now-expired Elderly Home Detention Pilot Program, clarify applicability of compassionate release from federal prisons, and implement other reforms, including: clarifying that the percentage of time served required for the Elderly Home Detention Pilot Program should be calculated based on an inmate’s sentence, including reductions for good conduct time credits; expanding the eligibility criteria for the Elderly Home Detention Pilot Program to include nonviolent offenders who have served at least 50 percent of their terms of imprisonment; clarifying that elderly nonviolent D.C. Code offenders in BOP custody are eligible for the Elderly Home Detention Pilot Program and that federal prisoners sentenced before November 1, 1987 are eligible for compassionate release; and, subjecting elderly home detention eligibility decisions to judicial review (based on the First Step Act’s compassionate release provision).

APPEAL/CR.RIS. The Eighth Circuit vacated and remanded United States v. Jonathan Wright, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 33882 (8th Cir. Dec. 30, 2025). In 2012, Wright was sentenced to life imprisonment after a federal drug conviction. In 2024, he filed a motion for a sentence reduction, citing intervening changes in sentencing law. The district court granted this motion and reduced Wright's sentence to 420 months followed by 10 years of supervised release. Wright appealed arguing that the district court abused its discretion by not resentencing him to an even lower sentence. In January 2025—after Wright filed this appeal—President Biden commuted Wright's sentence to 330 months. The court reviewed whether the commutation moots Wright's appeal and, if not, whether the district court abused its discretion in resentencing him. A circuit split exists on whether a court can modify a commuted sentence. The Fourth Circuit has held that a court cannot disturb a "presidentially commuted sentence" even if only by further reducing the sentence. Blount v. Clarke, 890 F.3d 456, 462 (4th Cir. 2018). The Sixth Circuit, conversely, has reasoned that an executive commutation only modifies the execution of a judgment, and that a court can still correct its own mistakes in issuing the original sentence. Dennis v. Terris, 927 F.3d 955, 959-61 (6th Cir. 2019). Under this view, a court might sometimes be able to reduce a commuted sentence. See id. Other circuits have treated a defendant's challenge to an already-commuted sentence as a live dispute without analyzing this latent separation-of-powers question. See, e.g., United States v. Sanders, 133 F.4th 341, 356 (5th Cir. 2025); United States v. Davis, 130 F.4th 1272, 1286 (11th Cir. 2025). The Eighth Circuit determined that President Biden's commutation did not moot Wright's motion. Wright was correct that his Arkansas prior convictions under Section 5-64-401 are no longer predicate offenses. The district court's decision not to consider this argument when sentencing him was based on an erroneous legal conclusion and accordingly was an abuse of discretion. Remand is warranted on this basis alone. The court vacated Wright's sentence and remanded for resentencing.

CR.RIS/MEDICAL/FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES/REHABILITATION. The Eastern District of Virginia granted in part a CR.RIS motion in United States v. Lundy, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 262230 (E.D. Va. Dec. 18, 2025). Lundy was indicted on a charge of Conspiracy to Distribute and Possess with the Intent to Distribute 500 Grams or More of Cocaine Hydrochloride. Lundy was sentenced to 188 months. Lundy presented three primary arguments for compassionate release: (1) health risks; (2) a change in the law affected by the decision in United States v. Norman, 935 F.3d 232 (4th Cir. 2019), pursuant to which Lundy would no longer qualify for the career offender enhancement; and (3) his need to care for his minor daughter following her mother's death. Lundy has been diagnosed with a heart condition, deep vein thrombosis in his leg, Marfan syndrome, hypertension, aortic valve disorder, coagulation defects, and rheumatoid arthritis. The change in law (the decision in Norman) operates to relieve Lundy of the Career Offender Enhancement in calculating his Criminal History Category. Lundy argued that he should be granted compassionate release because the death of the mother of one of his children necessitates that he be available to care for the child. Defendant’s motion was partially granted and his sentence was reduced from 150 months to 105 months.

APPEAL/18 USC 922(g)(1). The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded United States v. Edward Cockerham, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 33001 (5th Cir. Dec. 17, 2025).

Cockerham pled guilty for failing to pay child support in violation of Mississippi law. He was sentenced to five years of probation. But Mississippi law makes clear that he could have been imprisoned for up to five years. He eventually repaid his child support and was released from probation. Cockerham was subsequently indicted for possessing a firearm in violation of 18 USC 922(g)(1), based solely on his prior conviction for failing to pay child support. Section 922(g)(1) is not limited to violent felonies. It is not even limited to felonies. 18 USC 921(a)(20). Moreover, it disarms individuals who have never been incarcerated. What's more, it disarms them for the rest of their lives. So it imposes a lifetime ban on possession of a firearm—and it does so even if the person has never spent a single day in prison. The Government failed to establish a historical analogue justifying permanent disarmament of an individual whose only predicate offense was failure to pay child support, especially when that debt had been fully paid at the time of firearm possession. Because Cockerham was no longer delinquent on child support when found with a firearm, there was no historical justification to disarm him at that moment, much less for his lifetime. The Fifth Circuit's binding precedent espouses evaluating as-applied challenges to 922(g)(1) by focusing on the nature of the predicate offense rather than on the defendant's broader criminal history or individual characteristics. Courts sift the elements of a defendant's prior convictions through Bruen's analogical framework, and not the defendant himself. Courts do not embrace the view that courts should look beyond a defendant's predicate conviction and assess whether the felon's history or characteristics make him likely to misuse firearms. The relevant consideration is a defendant's prior convictions that are punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, not unproven conduct. Conviction set-aside.

APPEAL/COOPERATION. The Eleventh Circuit vacated and remanded United States v. Erika Day, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 33634 (11th Cir. Dec. 23, 2025). This appeal required the Eleventh Circuit to decide whether a district court, on a motion to depart from a statutory minimum prison sentence for substantial assistance for one offense, see 18 U.S.C. 3553(e), may depart from a separate statutory minimum sentence for another offense. Erika Day was convicted of both methamphetamine possession with intent to distribute and firearm use attendant to a drug crime. Each offense carries a statutory minimum prison sentence of five years. The government moved to depart below the statutory minimum for the offense of methamphetamine possession. The district court granted that motion but sentenced Day below the statutory minimum for both offenses. Because section 3553(e) allows a departure from a statutory minimum sentence only when the Government moves for it the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. Section 3553(e) allows a district court to depart from a statutory minimum "upon motion of the Government." 18 U.S.C. 3553(e). Any departure must be based on "only substantial assistance factors." United States v. Mangaroo, 504 F.3d 1350, 1356 (11th Cir. 2007). The text and structure of section 3553(e), along with 11th Circuit precedents, make clear that a substantial-assistance motion for one count does not allow a district court to depart from the statutory minimum on another count. A district court cannot impose a sentence below a statutory mandatory minimum for one offense based on the Government's substantial assistance motion for a different offense. This "asymmetry warrants reflection." While the sentencing regime affords district courts with nearly unbounded discretion to impose higher sentences, it does not entrust them with the same discretion to impose lower sentences. Day's case "illustrates the consequences" of this asymmetry.