Thread by @KevinARing

Buckle up for a longer #KeepThemHome update:
In AG Garland’s announcement that DOJ would not require people on CARES Act home confinement to return en masse at the end of the pandemic, he said DOJ would begin a rule-making process.

The process is to determine who BOP should bring back to prison. FAMM and others have been arguing no one should be sent back unless they broke the rules. BOP in a memo repeated its view people with lengthy sentences remaining should be brought back to prison for programming.

In fact, BOP said sentence length should be an important factor in deciding whom to bring back.
We sent a letter to Dep AG Lisa Monaco recently explaining why that reasoning is flawed. We gave real-life examples and the first was Kendrick Fulton. We wrote:

“Kendrick Fulton has nearly ten years remaining on the 33-year sentence he received for a nonviolent drug crime. On September 30, 2020, Kendrick was transferred to CARES Act home confinement pursuant to the criteria set forth by then-Attorney General Bill Barr.

“After reconnecting with his family and trying various jobs, Kendrick pursued his commercial driver’s license (CDL). He began classes in May 2021 and secured his CDL in July. For the past several months,

“he has been working no fewer than forty hours a week as a driver for a very large and well-known U.S. company.
Kendrick is thriving. But if sentence length is a significant factor in deciding whom to return to custody, Kendrick might be at risk.

“His ten years remaining is one of the longer terms of those on CARES Act home confinement. And, yet, there is absolutely no penological reason to put Kendrick back behind bars.

“[BOP]’s memo says that returning Kendrick and people like him to prison would “provide the agency a more meaningful opportunity to provide programming and services to the offender in a secure facility.”

“It is hard to imagine what BOP programming could add to what he has accomplished on his own initiative while on home confinement. In fact, Kendrick would not have been eligible to pursue his CDL license if he were in prison because that oppty only exists in fed prison camps.”

Kendrick’s success has been featured in numerous media stories, including, most recently, this one from Matt Grant: kxan.com/investigations…

Last night I received word that Kendrick had been summoned to the halfway house overseeing his home confinement. Kendrick and his sister had been bickering about money. She called the halfway house and said she didn’t want him to live with her anymore.

When he got to the halfway house this morning, he was told the US Marshals would be picking him up to return to prison. His sister did not realize that would happen and said he could come back, but BOP said no.

He has spent today in a couple of different local facilities waiting to determine his fate. He had already applied to transfer his residence to live with another family member.We’ve asked DOJ and his lawyer has asked that he be allow to stay local until that request is approved

But, as of now, it appears he could be headed back to prison – even though he did not do anything wrong! BOP has decided he no longer has a stable home. If sent back to prison, Kendrick will have to try to be granted CARES Act home confinement again,

but who knows how long that process might take.

This is all infuriating. But it is a reminder that what we said before the Biden admin took office remains true: while the OLC memo revision was huge, keeping people on ankle monitors/home confinement for years is untenable.

We saw what happened with Gwen Levi and others. The administration needs to use its clemency authority to let Kendrick and others get on with their lives. And in the meantime, the rule making process AG Garland started...

must make clear that people should not be sent back for BS violations (or no violations, as in Kendrick’s case). The consequences are too great. They are not being remanded for a few months, but for years.

It is time for the administration to #KeepThemHome as in ALL HOME. Enough is enough.

Thanks to those who fought for Kendrick today and kept us up to date, namely, his CARES Act angels, @dmart127, @MsWendyKH, and @walls_inside.