Newsletter to Federal Prisoners

As you know, last September, the BOP changed its email system to make mass emailing of this newsletter very difficult. On July 9, 2025, the BOP made an additional change to prohibit sending an email to more than one inmate at a time, making the dissemination of the newsletter to our 10,000-plus subscribers practically impossible.

This is a copy of the newsletter for July 21, 2025. I have reformatted it to eliminate graphics so everything printed in black will fit into a Corrlinks email (if you are providing it to an inmate).

LISA Newsletter for July 21, 2025 – The Guns of August Come Early This Year

LISA publishes a free newsletter sent to inmate subscribers in the Federal system. Due to BOP Corrlinks limitations, the newsletter must be sent to inmates one at a time.

Edited by Thomas L Root, MA JD

Vol 11, No 29

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One Toke Over the 2^nd Amendment Line?

Speaking of Guns, as We Are…

BOP Week

Sentencing Commission Holds Guideline Retroactivity Hearing

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ONE TOKE OVER THE 2^ND AMENDMENT LINE?

Remember how your mother scolded you to take good care of your stuff? The lesson didn’t stick with college student Erik Harris. A few days after he bought two handguns in close succession, Erik got “really drunk” and high at a party. One of his guns disappeared.

As soon as Erik sobered up, he reported the gun stolen and bought a replacement. On all three purchases, Erik said on the ATF form that he was not an “unlawful user of or addicted to marijuana.”

When Erik’s missing gun turned up in a felon’s possession, police questioned Erik. He admitted to smoking weed regularly, including earlier that same day. The government charged Erik with three counts of possessing a gun as an “unlawful [drug] user” under 18 USC 922(g)(3). Erik got convicted.

Last week, the 3^rd Circuit held that 922(g)(3) was not facially unconstitutional under the 2^nd Amendment. The nation’s founding-era laws temporarily disarmed people who were dangerously drunk or mentally ill because their impaired mental state posed a risk to others. Section 922(g)(3)’s temporary restriction on gun rights addresses a similar problem and is thus analogous to these historical restrictions, the Circuit said. The risk of danger due to an altered mental state and imposes a similar burden of temporary disarmament.

But 922(g)(3) might not apply to Erik, the 3^rd admitted. The district court did not find that Erik’s frequent marijuana use increased the risk that he could not handle guns safely. “Whether Harris’s 922(g)(3) conviction is constitutional turns on many facts unanswered by the existing record,” the 3^rd said, so it remanded the case for fact-finding, including on how recently Erik had smoked prior to gun possession, whether the pot affected his judgment and impulse control, or caused psychosis, and marijuana’s long-term physical and mental effects.

The significance of the decision is the 3^rd Circuit’s use once again of an individual dangerousness analysis – like it did in Range – to decide whether 922(g) was constitutional as applied in a particular situation.

US v Harris, Case No 21-3031, 2025 USAppLEXIS 17293 (3d Cir. July 14, 2025)

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SPEAKING OF GUNS, AS WE ARE…

The Dept of Justice last Friday released long-awaited proposed rules for convicted felons and other disqualified people to win restoration of their gun rights.

In March, the DOJ restored gun rights to a handful of people disqualified by 18 USC 922(g), most famously to actor Mel Gibson (who had been disqualified under 18 USC 922(g)(9) for a domestic violence conviction over a decade before). At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ would be crafting a program for people covered by 922(g) to apply for restoration of gun rights under its authority granted by 18 USC 925(c).

The DOJ’s 48-page notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) outlines the history of firearms rights restoration, the legal authority and policy rationale for such a program, the offenders excluded by the rule, and the evaluation process for applicants.

“For too long, countless Americans with criminal histories have been permanently disenfranchised from exercising the right to keep and bear arms—a right every bit as constitutionally enshrined as the right to vote, the right to free speech, and the right to free exercise of religion—irrespective of whether they actually pose a threat,” Bondi said in a press release. “No longer.”

The proposed rule holds that people who were fugitives from justice (922(g)(2)), unlawful drug users 922(g)(2)), subject to domestic violence restraining orders (922(g)(8), or illegal immigrants (922(g)(5)) will be “presumptively ineligible for relief… absent extraordinary circumstances.” The proposed rule also lists individual violent felony offenses, sex crimes, and other crimes “closely associated with dangerousness,” such as threatening or stalking offenses, that would be grounds for presumptive denial.

The rule would provide that people with certain offenses that are “less serious or indicative of violence” can have their presumption of denial mitigated by passage of time. The proposal says that for some crimes, like drug-distribution or misdemeanor domestic violence, that “bear a more direct relationship to violence,” DOJ will consider applicants without a presumption of denial only after ten years have passed following completion of probation, parole, or supervised release. All non-violent offenders would be required to wait 5 years after completing their punishment before DOJ will process their applications.

The rule states that DOJ will review the history and characteristics of the applicant, including the entire criminal history, non-charged conduct, known associations, and inquiries to local law enforcement.

The NPRM makes it fairly clear that a prime motivator for the program is to give the Government an argument that courts need not decide 18 USC 922(g)(1)’s constitutionality of because an alternative gun rights restoration is in place: “As recognized by courts, a functional section 925(c) process would render much of this litigation unnecessary and ensure that individuals meeting the relevant criteria may possess firearms under federal law in a manner consistent with the Second Amendment, while still protecting public safety.”

This is nothing more than an administrative band-aid. If someone like Melynda Vincent – whose 15-year old bank fraud conviction should not have disqualified her from gun ownership under the 2^nd Amendment – was never constitutionally stripped of her right to own a gun, then a government argument that she is entitled to jump through a protracted application hoop to win back 2^nd Amendment rights she never lost is specious.

DOJ, Application for Relief from Disabilities Imposed by Federal Laws with Respect to the Acquisition, Receipt, Transfer, Shipment, Transportation, or Possession of Firearms (Jul 18)

DOJ, Justice Department Publishes Proposed Rule to Grant Relief to Certain Individuals Precluded from Possessing Firearms (Jul 18

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BOP WEEK

Marshall Establishes FSA Task Force:   Bureau of Prisons Director William K. Marshall III last week announced the establishment of an FSA Task Force at the Grand Prairie DSCC.

Marshall cited inmate “frustration that their paperwork for home confinement… wasn’t being processed by staff despite Director Marshall’s directive to maximize the use of community placement. But at the same time, the staff told [Marshall] that the systems they rely on weren’t always showing the right dates… The majority of staff were doing their best with the information they had, but, unfortunately, they were taking the blame from inmates and families who thought they were dragging their feet. That wasn’t fair to them.”

The task force will identify prisoners in halfway houses who are eligible for home confinement; manually calculate home confinement dates that “stack[] both the FSA and Second Chance Act (SCA);” and ‘review eligible incarcerated individuals inside institutions for additional community placement opportunities.”

Writing in Forbes, Walter Pavlo said, “Having a person serve a portion of their sentence in the community is not something new and has been used for decades by the BOP. However, the Agency has been slow to move inmates after the [First Step Act] was codified… in January 2022. The initiative is part of Director Marshall’s broader strategy of “Leadership in Action,” which has included institutional walk-throughs, direct engagement with frontline staff, and timely operational changes based on what he hears.”

BOP, Director Marshall Launches FSA Task Force (Jul 14)

Forbes, Bureau Of Prisons Launches First Step Act Task Force (Jul 14)

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Alcatraz Moves Forward:  Never mind that the price tag is over $2 billion to renovate a prison closed for 60 years that only houses 325 prisoners and has no water supply. A visit to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay last week by Bondi, Dept of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Marshall, and BOP Deputy Director Joshua J. Smith makes is clear that President Trump’s May musings on social media that he wanted to reopen USP Alcatraz to “house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders” and remove criminals “who came into our country illegally” is going to happen.

A BOP press release underscores that Alcatraz is pure symbolism: “Reopening Alcatraz isn’t just about a building, it’s about sending a message: crime doesn’t pay, and justice will be served. If feasible, Alcatraz will stand as a beacon of American resolve, where the most dangerous offenders face accountability. For the public, it’s a promise fulfilled—a stronger, safer America. And for President Trump, it’s a project that will make our nation proud.”

Alcatraz was closed as a maximum-security prison in 1963 after 29 years of operation, because it was too expensive to continue operating. Now managed by the National Park Service, it is one of San Francisco’s most popular tourist destinations.

BOP, The Rebirth of Alcatraz (Jul 17)

NY Times, Trump’s Plan to Reopen Alcatraz Appears to Move Forward With Officials’ Visit (Jul 17)

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FPC Duluth to Remain Open: Seven months after then-BOP Director Colette Peters listed FPC with six other facilities that would be closed because of “aging and dilapidated infrastructure,” Marshall announced last week after a site inspection that the minimum-security camp “will not be deactivated.”

Currently, there are about 258 inmates at the facility.

Minnesota Public Radio, Duluth prison camp to remain open, reversing earlier decision to ‘deactivate’ the facility (Jul 16)

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ICE Sending Immigrant Detainees to FDC Honolulu, Proposes Using Fort Dix: Over 70 immigrant detainees, some from as far away as Florida, have been housed at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu.

One immigration lawyer was quoted as saying a client “was taken into custody in Florida and went to two detention centers there before he was transferred to Louisiana, Arizona and two facilities in California before finally coming to Hawaii.” Lawyers have complained that it makes consultation with their clients almost impossible.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Homan stated over the weekend that approximately 60,000 immigrants are currently in custody, with plans to detain an additional 40,000.

Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth approved the use of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, where FCI Fort Dix is located, to confine immigrants. The Defense Department said detainees would be confined in “temporary soft-sided holding facilities,” suggesting that for now FCI Fort Dix facilities themselves would not be used.

Honolulu Civil Beat, ICE Is Moving Immigrants Arrested On The Mainland To Honolulu (Jul 16)

Philadelphia Inquirer, Trump administration plans to hold immigration detainees on South Jersey military base (Jul 18)

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SENTENCING COMMISSION HOLDS GUIDELINE RETROACTIVITY HEARING

At a hearing last week, the US Sentencing Commission heard from prosecutors, public defenders, and advocates for and against making some of the proposed Guideline changes slated to be effective in November retroactive.

The Federal Defender Sentencing Guideline Committee made the case bluntly: If ever there was a time for the Commission to make ameliorative guideline amendments retroactive, it is now. The reality is simple, indisputable, and unacceptable: the [BOP] is unable to humanely and safely hold the people in its custody… The BOP is in the midst of multiple, self-described crises, which are decades in the making and from which the BOP has neither the plan nor the means to escape.”

A retroactivity decision will come next month.

US Sentencing Commission, Public Hearing on Retroactivity (Jul 16)

Federal Public Defenders, Comment on Possible Retroactive Application (Jul 16)

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The LISA Newsletter is copyright 2025, LISA Foundation, PO Box 636, Norwalk OH 44857.

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