Samaritan Projects Newsletter

08.21.26

SAMARITAN PROJECTS LLC

4415 Gladstone Blvd.

Kansas City, MO 64123

SP@NorridLaw.com CorrLinks

Rusty 417 236 1179

Steve 816 562 4981

The SAMARITAN-PROJECT prepares post-conviction and compassionate release motions under the direction of Attorney Tom Norrid. The Project retrieves documents at reasonable prices. The Project newsletter reports every winning published district court and court of appeals case for the week in review.

United States v. Baker , 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187391

(W.D. Vir.) August 19, 2026. Ultimately, the court is more persuaded by the reasoning of courts that have held there is no requirement that a defendant show he is the only available caregiver when a minor child's caregiver dies or is incapacitated. The plain language of the guideline provision, and the differences in the subsections, certainly supports that conclusion. See Taylor (the Maryland case), 2025 WL 1518845, at 12.  But even if Baker were required to show he is the only available caregiver, the court concludes that he has narrowly met that burden. On this issue, again, courts are not united as to whether a potential caregiver can be considered "available" where the person has expressed an [17]  unwillingness to provide that care, but the court believes he or she might have the ability to do so.

United States v. Ornelas , 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 181345 

(E.D.Cali.) August 13, 2026. In sum, Defendant has shown that a reduction in her custodial sentence to time served is supported by extraordinary and compelling reasons and is consistent with the § 3553(a) sentencing factors considered by the court. Accordingly, the court will grant Defendant's unopposed motion for compassionate release. As reflected in the declaration of Defendant's daughter, the side effects of the chemotherapy and radiation treatments left her unable to take herself to medical appointments, cook for herself, and bathe herself; she relied on Defendant for these daily care needs and is again facing those same care needs for an even longer period of time.

We found this interesting post by Douglas Berman on

August 16, 2026

The title of this post “Mandatory Justice” is the title of this notable new paper authored by JaneAnne Murray and now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

    Mandatory minimum sentencing regimes, once touted as key elements in a prosecutor’s arsenal, are under fire. Empirical analysis of mass incarceration reveals the outsize role these laws have played in erasing trials, transferring sentencing power to prosecutors, and fueling guilty pleas. States have begun to repeal them; bipartisan bills in Congress propose judicial escape hatches from them; judges and professional organizations have condemned them. But what of the view of the public, in whose name the relevant statutes and regulations were originally enacted? More saliently, what role does (and should) public opinion play in the development of sentencing policy and practice? Through the lens of unique national surveys—including embedded experiments—of large diverse samples of respondents over five election cycles, including three presidential ones, this paper presents and analyzes public attitudes to mandatory minimum sentences and, uniquely, the public’s attitude to granting judges discretion to set such mandatory sentences aside in extraordinary cases.           

    The results are unambiguous. Over 60% in 2016 opposed the inflexible imposition of a mandatory minimum sentence even in relatively short mandatory minimum sentences: five years for first-time offenders and ten years for repeat offenders (sentences that one judge has described are “small dose injustices”), a position that holds across experimental conditions involving the race, prior criminal history and mitigating personal factors of the offender. Overall support for judicial discretion to set aside mandatory minimum sentences only increases over election cycles, culminating in 77% in 2022, and holding steady at 75% in 2024. Perhaps most notably, in each election cycle, the factor that (by far) predicts a respondent’s opposition to judicial discretion in the face of mandatory minimum statutes is racial resentment. These findings have important implications for the constitutionality of mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, for legislative efforts to repeal and/or amend them, for prosecutorial charging policies, for “second look” amelioration, and for the sentencing process itself.

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SamaritanProjects.com Website

Rusty 417 236 1179

Steve 816 562 4981