The 65% Law (And Other Silliness) – Update for September 18, 2025

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

EASTER BUNNY SAYS 65% LAW GOES INTO EFFECT ON NOVEMBER 1ST

I would say the silly season is upon us, but that would wrongly imply that it ever left.

Last week, I had a half-dozen questions about changes in the First Step Act to provide relief to people with gun convictions under 18 USC § 924, about how the Armed Career Criminal Act’s drug predicates are changing, and – of course – how the long-anticipated “65% law” is about to go into effect. And every one of the questions said the same – it’s all happening on November 1st.

I repeat what has become my annual myth-busting ritual over the past decade:

• There is nothing magical about November 1st. That is the day that Guidelines amendments become effective (unless blocked by Congress, which is as unlikely as the Cleveland Browns going to the Super Bowl).

• No Guideline amendment becoming effective on November 1st will apply to anyone who has already been sentenced (that is, become retroactive). This is unfortunate, because the amendments represent fundamental changes that alter how judges impose sentences, manage post-conviction supervision, and evaluate requests for sentence reductions. But the sad fact is that the Commission proposed retroactivity for a few of the changes and then failed to adopt it for any of this year’s slate of changes.

• No Guideline change effective this fall will affect 18 USC § 924, eligibility for First Step Act credits, Armed Career Criminal Act, or any other law passed by Congress. Only Congress can change a federal law.  Laws are not Guidelines and Guidelines are not laws.

And what will Congress do? Well, yesterday, the House passed H.R. 5140, lowering the age for which youth offenders in the District of Columbia can be tried as adults for certain criminal offenses, changing the threshold to 14 years of age. The Hill reports that “Republicans are set to vote on several other bills relating to D.C. crime later this week as they carry on President Trump’s crusade against crime in the nation’s capital after his 30-day takeover of the city’s police force expired.”

It’s a safe bet that no one in Congress has the stomach to pass any bill that will ease criminal laws or help prisoners.  The crusade, as The Hill described it, is against crime, not for crime.

• This means that there is NO 65% bill, 65% law or 65% anything. There is NO proposal to cut federal sentences so that everyone will only serve 65% of their time. There is NO bill, law, NO directive from Trump, and NO anything else that will give inmates extra time off. Nothing, nada, zilch, bupkis.

As the Federalist – commenting on the mentally ill suspect accused of stabbing a Ukrainian immigrant to death last month in Charlotte, North Carolina – said last week, “Instead of buying into the dangerous lie that mass incarceration doesn’t work, we should be building more prisons and sending violent criminals there for lengthy sentences… What we’ve been doing for years now is dangerous and morally indefensible. Releasing violent criminals onto the streets, as White House deputy chief Stephen Miller said Tuesday, is a ‘form of political terrorism’ — perpetrated by Democrat elected officials against the people who live in their jurisdictions.”

Do these people sound like they’re interested in any common-sense criminal justice reform? Is there an Easter Bunny?

I am sure that I will have to write this again next year.  And the year after that.  And the year after that. Ad infinitum.

The Hill, House passes 2 bills overhauling DC sentencing policies (September 16, 2025)

The Federalist, We Need To Bring Back Mass Incarceration And Involuntary Commitment (September 10, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root