Might White House provide "impact data" on FIRST STEP Act as Prez Trump celebrates the law next week?

Download (12)In this post last week, I wondered aloud "Might the US Sentencing Commission provide some real-time updates on the implementation of the FIRST STEP Act?".  Today, after seeing this heart-warming article in the Washington Examiner, I am now wondering and hoping that the White House might be a source of FIRST STEP data now that they have a celebration of the law in the works.  The Examiner article is headlined "Jared Kushner called Walmart to get job for first woman freed by First Step Act," and here are excerpts:

Catherine Toney began February in prison and ended the month with a job at Walmart after White House adviser Jared Kushner called the Arkansas-based retailer on her behalf.  Toney, 55, is believed to be the first woman freed by the First Step Act, which President Trump signed in December. She was released Feb. 1 after serving 16 years, benefiting from the law's retroactive crack cocaine sentence reductions.

Toney will join Trump on Monday for an event celebrating the criminal justice reform law, his first major bipartisan policy achievement. Other recently released inmates were invited to attend.

Toney met Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and an architect of the reform law, on Feb. 21 when she attended a White House Black History Month event. Kushner asked about Toney's plans — and she said she wanted to work at the Walmart in Daphne, Ala. He volunteered to call Walmart for her, according to Toney and two others in the room.

"He promised me he was going to do it," Toney said. One day later, she got a call from a woman named Becky at Walmart's corporate office, saying that Kushner had called, and that the company wanted to help. "I went to the White House, but I came home to nothing, not anything at all. By him calling corporate himself, he made sure I got in this Walmart where I asked," Toney said. "He was a man of his word and he did what he said he would."...

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a Walmart representative confirmed that Kushner personally called. The representative said Toney met the standards for employment, and that the company wanted to help other former prisoners.

Jessica Sloan, national director of the prison reform group #cut50, said Toney is part of a bigger-picture effort by Kushner to enlist businesses to hire formerly incarcerated people, including by helping reduce re-entry barriers, such as poor Internet literacy. "Catherine is a test case" for the retail giant, said Sloan, whose group offered Toney a temporary contract job, before she landed the Walmart position, to help her buy a car.

Also attending the Monday celebration is April Johnson, 40, who was freed from prison in January under a compassionate release provision to care for her daughter, who is suffering from terminal cancer, and for her daughter's two sons. "I would like to thank [Trump] for putting the new law in effect," she said.

Troy Powell, 41, wants to thank Trump, while urging a second step for others. Powell, now working at a lumber company, served nearly 16 years of a crack cocaine sentence and was freed under the same retroactive provision as Toney. In prison, Powell said there's some surprise at Trump's role.  "When the election was going, no one was looking forward to Trump being in there," Powell said. "People thought the Democrats were going to change the laws and get them out of prison, but then it was the Republicans and Trump who changed the laws."

Powell notes, however, that the First Step Act reduces certain future prison sentences, including limiting gun sentencing enhancements, without retroactively reducing the same sentences for those now in prison. Another section of the law expanding "good time" credit to give near-immediate release to about 4,000 people, a provision meant to apply retroactively, has been stalled due to a drafting error.

Amy Povah, the founder of the CAN-DO Foundation, said that despite criticism, the First Step Act "has actually exceeded some expectations," particularly with compassionate releases for elderly or ailing inmates.  Still, Povah advocates for Trump to supplement the law with more grants of clemency to prisoners.

Monday's events at the White House will feature a "strategy session" on how to move forward on reforms, a workforce re-entry event with Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, and an afternoon celebration with Trump.

I am very pleased to see Amy Povah continue to urge Prez Trump to follow-up the FIRST STEP Act with clemency grants, especially because we are already getting close to a full year since Prez Trump started generating lots of clemency excitement by talking up the possibility of lots and lots of clemency grants.  I also think she is right to note that, as I discussed in this prior post, there could be a huge impact from the FIRST STEP Act allowing inmates to bring directly to court so-called compassionate release motions to "modify a term of imprisonment"  under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(C)(1)(A). 

But, as the question in the title of this post hints, I find it really hard to judge whether the FIRST STEP Act is meeting or exceeding (or falling below) expectations because I have not yet seen even a partial accounting of how many persons have been released from prison thanks to various provisions of the Act.  In addition, the heart of the bill's prison reforms, both the increase in "good time" credit and the creation of an "earned time" credit system, are already having an array of early implementation challenges.  And, problematically, because the federal Bureau of Prisons lacks a permanent director and because the US Sentencing Commission lacks a quorum of commissioners, two key agencies for implementing the Act are operating at a significant deficiencies.

Put simply, I am very excited the White House will be having an exciting event to celebrate the exciting FIRST STEP Act, and now I hope that this event will help give everyone more reasons to be excited about the reality of FIRST STEP Act implementation.

A few prior related posts on FIRST STEP Act implementation:

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