More. . .

Clinic Menu

COVID-19 Rapid Response

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the FCJC quickly pivoted from other projects to help people in federal jails and prisons. Under the supervision of Professors Alison Siegler and Erica Zunkel, the FCJC’s work took several different forms. The FCJC worked with Congress on legislation that would release more people from jails and prisons. The Clinic also collaborated with the Federal Defenders in Chicago and nationwide on their policy response and compiled up-to-date information on the Bureau of Prisons (BOP)’s inept response to COVID-19’s rapid spread in federal jail and prisons.

The centerpiece of our COVID-19 rapid response was researching and filing compassionate release motions for six clients in federal prison. Our clients were particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 because of their age and serious underlying health conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Federal compassionate release permits a judge to reduce a person’s sentence for medical reasons, family circumstances, or any other “extraordinary and compelling” circumstance. In 2018, Congress expanded compassionate release so that people in federal prisons can bring these motions to judges, rather than waiting for the BOP to grant relief.

FCJC students spent countless hours scouring our clients’ case records, reaching out to our clients and their families and friends to verify release plans, doing legal research, and drafting compassionate release motions.

The FCJC’s efforts had a significant impact. Six of our seven clients were released from federal prison as a direct result of the FCJC’s efforts and were reunited with their families, safe from COVID-19’s deadly spread in the BOP. One of our clients, who found himself in a particularly harrowing situation at FCI Butner—where nine incarcerated people died during the pandemic—praised the FCJC’s work: “[The FCJC’s] assistance, persistence, and relentless advocacy allowed me to be writing you this letter from the safety of the home to which I have been released. What [the FCJC] accomplished was nothing short of a miracle.”

Relevant Materials