media mentions

Tips for prisoner release requests during pandemic

Apr 13, 2020

Once imposed, a federal prison sentence can be reduced by one of only two ways: either the government moves to decrease the sentence, or the defendant qualifies for "compassionate release."

For decades, compassionate release was rarely granted. However, as Waller's Bill Athanas, JD Thomas and Charles Prueter describe, two factors recently changed that:

• The First Step Act of 2018 amended the statute to allow prisoners to directly petition courts for compassionate release.
• The COVID-19 pandemic created an environment which expands substantially the instances supporting the statute’s invocation.

To learn more, read the full article in Law360 here.