LISA Newsletter for April 20, 2026 – Sentencing Commission Builds Us Up, Disappoints Again

LISA publishes a free newsletter intended for inmate subscribers in the Federal system and interested readers in the outside world.

Edited by Thomas L Root, MA JD

Vol 12, No 16

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Bringing Forth A Mouse

You Only Have to Ask

For A Good Time, Call the BOP and Ask For Customer Service

Life Does Not Imitate Art

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BRINGING FORTH A MOUSE

The US Sentencing Commission held its long-anticipated April meeting last Thursday, taking up weighty proposals to reduce the methamphetamine purity guidelines and to bring some sense to the career offender label.

It brought forth a mouse.

No changes in meth, no changes in career offender status…. Everything was adopted quickly and unanimously.

As has become its habit, the Commission held a short and seemingly scripted meeting in which nothing was discussed, nothing was debated, and nothing was explained. Like the backlog of guidelines for which retroactivity was proposed in 2024 and 2025 – only to die without further mention – the guideline amendments that were rejected simply disappeared.

The proposed amendments that made it through the Commission’s process include

• addition of new paths for offenders to get credit for presentence rehabilitative efforts.
• increased emphasis on the availability of sentences eligible for probation, home confinement and split sentences.
• restructuring of the loss table for economic crimes to account for inflation over the past decade.
• elimination of the sophisticated means enhancement, and
• a new enhancement to account for the non-economic harm suffered by victims of economic crimes.

The only drug guideline change to be adopted was a boost in fentanyl-related sentencing levels, adopted to implement the HALT Fentanyl Act of 2025 (HR 27). Apparently, for all of the options proposed to moderate meth guidelines, the Commission decided to do nothing. I say “apparently” because, as usual, the USSC provided no explanation why some proposals did not make the cut.

The abandonment of the “career offender” proposal is troubling. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 directs the Commission to ensure that “career offenders” receive sentences near the statutory maximum. The Commission’s definition of what constitutes a career offender, however, has caught many defendants in the net whose criminal histories do not suggest “career criminal” by any stretch of the imagination.

The change in the “career offender” guidelines would have abandoned the current “categorical approach” to what prior convictions were crimes of violence or drug offenses, substituting instead a list of federal and state crimes that apply. Burglary would no longer apply, felonies of any kind for which the defendant served less than 90 days would not apply, and defendants would have a chance to show that some crimes of violence should not count because their conduct was completely nonviolent.

Forget that change.

Last December, the Commission asked for public comment on options to change the methamphetamine guidelines. One proposal is to simply eliminate the Guidelines distinction among a meth mixture, meth (actual), and high-purity ice. All meth would be scored the same. An alternative option would be to keep the distinctions in the current meth Guidelines but offer reductions for people who had minor roles, who qualified for the 18 USC 3553(f) safety valve, or who were involved only because of family relationships or duress.

Forget that change, too.

The commission, chaired by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves (SD Mississippi), currently has five voting members, with two empty seats. During President Trump’s first term, the Commission lost its quorum, going five years without being able to amend the Guidelines until President Biden appointed new members.

USSC, Reader-Friendly Proposed Sentencing Amendments (April 16, 2026)

Law 360, Sentencing Commission Votes To Enact Modest Reform Agenda (April 16, 2026)

National Law Journal, ‘No Longer One Size Fits All’: Tweaks to U.S. Sentencing Guidelines May Ease White-Collar Penalties, Cut Litigation (April 17, 2026)

HR 27, HALT Fentanyl Act of 2025

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YOU ONLY HAVE TO ASK

Rule 11(d) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allows a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea “after the court accepts the plea, but before it imposes sentence if . . . the defendant can show a fair and just reason.”

It sounds ‘easy, peasy,’ as the Brits like to say. But anyone who has ever tried to withdraw a guilty plea knows better.

Kent Clark, on trial on a drug indictment, went through four lawyers in a year. The court appointed one when he was arrested, but Kent hired his own within a few days. That guy didn’t work out, so Kent brought on Owen Kalis. Owen filed the usual pretrial discovery motions, a motion to suppress, and some motions to continue over the next 8 months. In early May 2024, Kent entered a guilty plea to all six counts of his indictment.

Two weeks later, Owen announced to everyone that he was immediately and permanently getting out of the law business. His notice was accompanied by an order from the Supreme Court of Ohio accepting his resignation with “disciplinary action pending.” The court appointed a new lawyer to represent Kent just as Kent sent a letter to the judge requesting to withdraw his guilty plea on the basis that he never saw the evidence, and Owen never explained the consequences of Kent’s plea or admitted that he himself was at risk of being disbarred.

Kent’s lawyer followed up with a formal motion to withdraw the guilty plea. The district court denied the motion without a hearing and sentenced Kent to 270 months.

Last week, the 6^th Circuit reversed, holding that Kent was entitled to a hearing on his motion to withdraw. A defendant “may be entitled to an evidentiary hearing on a presentence motion to withdraw if there are factual matters at issue which bear directly on the controversy,” the 6^th ruled, but the decision is left to the “wide discretion of the district court.”

The government claimed it had provided the discovery to Kent’s lawyer, Owen, and that Owen had declared he had shown it to Kent. The Circuit ruled that these claims were at odds with what Kent said happened, and that a hearing was required to resolve the dispute. Kent “raises factual disputes bearing directly on the knowing and voluntary nature of his plea that are not clearly dispelled by the record… it is not clear from the record that Kent had an opportunity to review the Plea Agreement before the hearing, and the district court stated at the start of the hearing that it was apparent Kent was not prepared… Finally, the fact that Owen’s resignation was due to a pending disciplinary action related to his problems with the representation of other clients lends some credence to Kent’s assertion of ineffective assistance of counsel.”

US v Clark, Case No 24-4068, 2026 US App. LEXIS 10889 (6th Cir. April 16, 2026)

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FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL THE BOP AND ASK FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

An after-hours phone call rang on a federal prison’s main number last Wednesday. The caller was a Mr. Lee, asking whether a particular prisoner was suffering a medical emergency. The inmate – who called his family daily – hadn’t been heard from for days, and the family hoped Mr. Lee could find out what they couldn’t, whether the man was just out of minutes or in a bad way.

The Bureau of Prisons officer who answered told Mr. Lee that he was calling “too f****** late” and refused to provide him any information beyond claiming that the inmate was alive and receiving appropriate medical care. When Mr. Lee, surprised by the discourtesy, asked for the employee’s name, the staffer hung up.

“Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve had this experience when talking to people from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on behalf of constituents with an incarcerated family member suffering from a severe medical condition,” Mr. Lee wrote on X. “And each occasion, I’ve been treated at best with dismissiveness and at worst with contempt and profanity. Has anyone else experienced this with the US Bureau of Prisons?”

No one from the outside, especially inmate family members, is surprised by Mr. Lee’s experience.

The BOP officer’s response was dismissive, essentially, “Who the f*** do you think you are, Mr. Lee?”

Well, Mr. Lee is Mike Lee, a former federal prosecutor who is now a Republican senator from Utah sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The CO may not have heard of Sen Lee, but the DOJ/BOP spin team sure had: it immediately flew into full damage-control mode.

DOJ’s Rapid Response social media account told Lee the CO’s conduct was “unacceptable” and said the matter was being addressed. A BOP spokesperson told the Washington Examiner, “The way the Senator was spoken to is inconsistent with the level of professionalism expected of our staff,” the spokesperson said. “This matter… is regrettable and unacceptable. It was immediately addressed at the highest levels.”

The Examiner said the “agency said senior leadership has already contacted Lee’s office and that appropriate corrective action would be taken. It is not immediately clear whether any disciplinary action was taken in response to the staffer’s conduct, and the spokesperson said the matter was still under an active investigation as of Thursday afternoon.”

But for the BOP, damage control came “too f****** late.” Reason magazine picked up the phone call story, saying, “Lee’s experience is a particularly pointed example of an issue that families and criminal justice advocacy groups have complained about for years: It’s next to impossible to get information about inmates’ health from the federal BOP, and the agency frequently fails to notify families when their incarcerated loved ones are sick or even dying.”

Reason cited its 2024 interviews with inmates’ family members describing delays in the BOP notifying them “that their incarcerated loved one had been hospitalized, or even died; having their phone calls ignored; not being allowed to see their loved one in their final moments; delays in being sent the body and death certificate; being given inaccurate or incomplete information about the manner of death; or waiting months and years for the BOP to fulfill their public records requests for more information about how their loved one died.”

In 2025, Sens Jon Ossoff (D–GA) and John Kennedy (R–LA) introduced the Family Notification of Death, Injury, or Illness in Custody Act (S.1322), which would require the BOP to promptly notify prisoners’ families when the inmate became seriously ill, suffered life-threatening injuries, or died. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee, but it has not yet gotten a hearing.

Sen Mike Lee, X Post of April 15, 2026

Washington Examiner, Prison bureau addresses ‘unacceptable’ treatment of Mike Lee after mishandled inmate call (April 16, 2026)

Reason, Sen. Mike Lee Says Federal Prison Hung Up on Him When He Tried To Check on Inmate (April 15, 2026)

S.1322, Family Notification of Death, Injury, or Illness in Custody Act

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LIFE DOES NOT IMITATE ART

Sen Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) last week introduced a bill to increase the criminal penalties for inmates assaulting BOP correctional officers.

The Safer Prisons Act of 2026, S. 4305, cosponsored by Sen Tom Cotton (R-AR), would double the maximum term of imprisonment for the offense.

“Federal prisons have become increasingly unsafe for the brave men and women who serve as federal corrections officers,” Sen Blackburn said. “Incidents of inmates assaulting BOP officers have been on the rise and often result in PTSD for the affected officers as they continue to do their jobs.”

Coincidentally, last week, a BOP employee from FCI Talladega was arrested for obstructing governmental operations and resisting arrest after he allegedly ran police and fire barricades, failed to abide by barricades and road closures on April 13. He reportedly drove through the scene while emergency crews were fighting a fire and then resisted attempts to take him into custody.

Obviously, the employee is innocent until proven guilty (a concept alien to the BOP disciplinary system), but this suggests that the assailants may not be just inmates.

S.4305, Safer Prisons Act of 2026

Ripon Advance, Blackburn proposes bill to double down on inmates who assault federal prison officers (April 17, 2026)

WABM-TV, Talladega Prison Staffer Arrested on Obstruction, Resisting Charges (April 16, 2026)

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The LISA Newsletter is copyright 2026, LISA Foundation, PO Box 636, Norwalk OH 44857.

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