On Dec. 23, 2024, President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 defendants on federal death row. Four days later, one of those defendants, Brandon Council, filed what is commonly referred to a "compassionate release" motion under the First Step Act, seeking to have his sentence reduced to time served. According to news reports, his motion claims that he has endured “severe, unnecessary, and unjustifiable psychological harm” while he was on death row at USP Terre Haute following his conviction for the cold-blooded murder of two employees—who were both mothers—during a 2017 bank robbery in South Carolina.

According to the docket sheet, the government has been ordered to respond to Council’s motion by the end of the month. No doubt, that response will require substantial resources from the prosecutors and investigators and will likely lead to the infliction of significant emotional distress on the families of Council’s victims who will be faced with reliving the worst moments of their lives once again. And while Council’s motion appears to be the first such motion filed by those whose sentences were commuted by Biden, there is little chance that it will be the last or the only. With the absence of any restrictions on the successive filings of such motions, victims, victims’ families, courts and the government will have to contend over and over again with the efforts of defendants like Council who seek to get out from under the sentences imposed on them after their convictions have become “final.” Consequently, the federal system now provides little truth in sentences or finality.

The desire for finality and transparency were two of the reasons Congress abolished parole in the federal criminal justice system in 1987. A federal defendant—and his or her victims—could anticipate serving the sentence the court announced with a possible reduction of up to 15% if the defendant earned good time credit while incarcerated. Similar considerations led Congress in 1996 to impose restrictions on successive habeas corpus petitions (such as those filed under Section 2255 of Title 28), meaning that a defendant could not ordinarily continue to litigate his case after his conviction, direct appeal, and collateral review were considered and resolved, saving substantial judicial and prosecutorial resources as well as providing finality. Under these circumstances, courts and prosecutors had been able to reasonably assure victims and their families that the sentences imposed on federal defendants reflected “truth in sentencing,” and, with some very narrow exceptions, those sentences would stand. Now, no such assurances can reasonable be given.