Every Case Is Different
Video Transcribed: What is compassionate release from federal prison? My name’s Ted Hasse. I’m a Federal Criminal Defense Attorney in Oklahoma at Wirth Law Office. I handle federal criminal matters. I’ve talked previously in another video about general options for getting out early from a term of federal incarceration.
We get a lot of calls here at our Tulsa office from folks who have been sentenced to a period of incarceration. And what I suspect is they get a call from a family member. Typically, we’re getting calls from family members. It’s not as easy in a federal facility for folks to get in touch with us, but people will find out within those federal facilities that some people are getting out on compassionate release.
What’s happening there and particularly over the last period of time with COVID, especially during a certain period in 2020. We were seeing a bunch of circumstances where certain individuals were under a compassionate release statute, able to get released early from their federal prison terms.
Sometimes getting significant periods of time taken off of what they were having to serve after a conviction. And that was related to frequent comorbidities that they had that made them more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.
In any case, this seemed to get around. We’ve got a lot of calls about this. And the good news is, is that there is this provision for compassionate release. It is possible for people to get out of their term of incarceration in federal prison early.
And some folks that were sentenced to a federal term of incarceration for a federal crime in Oklahoma, or from Tulsa have had some success. The bad news is, is at least in terms of things related to COVID, it looks like the window has pretty well closed for those opportunities.
The other bad news is that what’s typically happening in those cases where there’s a successful motion for this, where there’s a denial from the bureau of prisons for a request. And then the federal court goes the other way is either A, the individual is extremely elderly or the individual has a terminal illness or both.
Those are the most likely circumstances somebody is going to get compassionate release. Now the standard is broader than that and allows for possibly compassionate release, even in circumstances that aren’t that narrow. Every case is different. Please feel free to give us a call if you need a Federal Criminal Defense Attorney, or If you any have questions, call (918) 932-2800.
