Encouraging developments in remarkable federal case that threatened old prison term after obvious rehabilitation
I had been meaning to blog about this remarkable story first reported in the New Haven Independent under the headline "Glitch May Return Rehab’d Man To Prison." Here is the backstory from that piece:
Jermaine Demetrius Anderson may have to leave his two jobs, his condo in Westville, his local “church family,” and the stable, crime-free life he has built for himself in the Elm City — and go to prison. All because of an apparent miscommunication over a decade ago between the Connecticut state judicial system and the federal court in Philadelphia.
His hope now is the federal government — maybe even President Donald Trump — will cut him a break.
On Feb. 28, Paul Diamond, a judge with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, signed a warrant for Anderson’s arrest for his failure to serve an outstanding 16-month federal sentence. The sentence dates to a crime that occurred 16 years ago.
The federal court issued that sentence to Anderson, now a 43-year-old employee for the city’s parks department, in 2005 after he pleaded guilty to two felony counts of possessing and passing counterfeit currency and one count of identity theft while living in Pennsylvania. He committed the crimes in 2003.
Anderson never served that federal sentence. Even though he thought he had. That’s because he spent three years in state prison in Connecticut after pleading guilty to similar but separate counterfeit currency charges in New Haven in 2003. He said he believed he was serving his state and federal sentences concurrently while locked up in Webster Correctional Institution in Cheshire.
After finishing that state sentence in November 2006, the state judicial system didn’t remand him to federal custody in Philadelphia. He said no one reached out to him and said he had to report to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to serve more time for the federal offense. He thought he had done his time. He set about rebuilding his life in New Haven.
Thirteen years later, U.S. marshals came pounding on his door in New Haven last week, claiming that he had evaded arrest and demanding that he report back to Pennsylvania to serve 16 months in federal prison.
Local attorney Michael Dolan said he has been in touch with Philadelphia federal attorneys, and has urged them to reconsider requiring Anderson to serve federal time so long after he was sentenced and so long after he served time in state prison on similar charges. “It would appear that the goals of the criminal justice system have been met,” he said about his thoroughly rehabilitated client....
Robert Clark, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, told the Independent that the marshals unearthed Anderson’s outstanding federal sentence and the slip-up between the Connecticut state judicial system and the Pennsylvania federal district court during a routine audit.
“During an internal audit of custody detainers by the U.S. Marshals in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,” he said, “a case dating back to 2005 was found in which a sentenced man, Jermaine Demetrius Anderson, had been sent to Connecticut to face state charges. After a conviction and sentence served in Connecticut, Anderson should have been held for transfer back to federal custody; instead, he was mistakenly released. Upon the Marshals providing this information to a federal judge, the court issued a bench warrant for Anderson for failure to serve an outstanding federal sentence. Anderson was arrested in Connecticut March 20, released on bond and ordered to appear in U.S. district court in Philadelphia April 4. As the enforcement arm of the federal courts, the Marshals ensure that individuals with federal warrants are brought to face justice. Ultimately, the federal court system will make a determination on Anderson’s outstanding federal sentence.”
Dolan called Anderson’s case a prime example of someone who committed a crime, took responsibility by pleading guilty, served time in prison, and has subsequently successfully rehabilitated himself. “He’s been crime free, drug free, has employment,” Dolan said. “And now they want to take him back into custody.”
“It’s called corrections,” Anderson said. “I corrected myself. I don’t want pity. I just want people to be ethical.”
“I wasn’t evading,” he continued. “I wasn’t on the run.”
Encouragingly, this new CNN piece suggests an ethical outcome to this case may be in the works. The piece is headlined "Man who feared feds would finally impose sentence may have deal to avoid more prison," and here are the new developments:
A judge issued a bench warrant and Anderson was due back in court April 4, when it's possible he could be detained and sent to federal prison.
That apparently won't happen now after his lawyer said he reached a verbal agreement with prosecutors and the Bureau of Prisons to give Anderson credit for time "at liberty."
"I'm overjoyed but waiting for official paperwork," Anderson said, adding, "it's a blessing, but I want the blessing to be official. My heart is back in my chest where it should be." Attorney Michael Dolan said Friday he does not have an official agreement in writing.
CNN's efforts to reach the US attorney's office and the office of the federal judge overseeing the case were not immediately successful....
Dolan helped get Anderson released the day the marshals detained him, and he has been working with federal public defenders to keep his client from going to prison again.
"I certainly think it is cruel and unusual punishment," Dolan said Thursday.
I am pleased to see from this CNN piece that Anderson's attorney was apparently ready to argue that it would be unconstitutional to send him back to prison now under the Eighth Amendment. I do not think anyone would question a claim that this case is "unusual" and the facts described above certainly lead me to think it also "cruel" to require Anderson's imprisonment now under these circumstances. If a court were not prepared to rule that Anderson's reimprisonment was a violation of the Eighth Amendment, this case might alternatively be another setting for developing jurisprudence on what should be deemed "extraordinary and compelling reasons" warranting a sentence reduction under 18 USC 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). This case certainly seems extraordinary and compelling to me, and modifying Anderson's federal sentence now certain seems in keeping with the "factors set forth in section 3553(a)."
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