From Politico:
Under intense pressure from criminal justice reform advocates, the Justice Department has reversed a Trump-era legal opinion that could have required several thousand federal convicts to return to prison from home confinement if the Biden administration declares an end to the pandemic-related national emergency.
With the rise of the Omicron variant, such a milestone seems remote, but the new opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel meets demands from reformers and lawmakers that officials find a way to allow prisoners who’ve typically been living at home for a year or more under pandemic-related legal authorities to remain at home to serve out the remainder of their sentences.
The new opinion also reversed an opinion issued by DOJ lawyers five days before former President Donald Trump left office.
“We do not lightly depart from our precedents, and we have given the views expressed in our prior opinion careful and respectful consideration,” Assistant Attorney General Christopher Schroeder wrote in the new 15-page ruling. Continue reading >>>
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