Sunday, December 20, 2020

Compassionate release for man serving life, by Mikayla Espinosa

GUEST POST BY MIKAYLA ESPINOSA*

Last week, Judge Altonaga granted Luis Cano’s request for compassionate release, reducing his life sentence to a term of time served.

Mr. Cano, who suffers from severe hypertension and thus is at an increased risk from COVID-19 complications, was sentenced twenty-four years ago under the continuing criminal enterprise statute. He was serving his sentence at USP Terre Haute, a BOP facility experiencing a massive COVID outbreak.

In September, Mr. Cano filed a pro se motion for compassionate release, which Judge Altonaga denied in a lengthy order. Andrea Lopez and Sam Rabin then took on the case with the unenviable task of filing a motion for reconsideration.

They were successful: Judge Altonaga found that potential legal flaws with Mr. Cano’s sentence, disparities in sentencing, the BOP’s failure to provide adequate medical treatment for Mr. Cano, and the 3553a sentencing factors all supported Mr. Cano’s release­. She also found that her earlier denial of Mr. Cano’s pro se motion had resulted in manifest injustice that justified granting the motion for consideration.

As a central part of her analysis, Judge Altonaga revisited her earlier ruling and determined that the First Step Act allows courts to consider whatever grounds for release they deem extraordinary and compelling, regardless of whether those grounds were identified by the Sentencing Commission. Although the Eleventh Circuit has not yet decided the issue, Judge Altonaga was moved by the decisions and reasoning of other circuits. This significant opinion gives real power to the First Step Act by empowering courts to go beyond limitations previously imposed on compassionate release by both the Sentencing Commission and the Bureau of Prisons.

Andrea and Sam did exceptional work. Their brief (which Judge Altonaga acknowledged to be cogent and well supported) is a goldmine for any defense attorney advancing an argument for compassionate relief.

The case is United States v. Cano, 95-00481-CR-ALTONAGA.

*DOM note: Thank you to Mikayla for her guest posts, which are great content for the blog.  If you are also interested in writing guest posts, please feel free to email me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Would be helpful to post the order. Thanks.