Damiene Lewis, 41, was watching his nephew play at home in Baton Rouge, La., this year after being released from federal prison in Texas, where he was serving a 60-month sentence on gun and drug charges. Quentin Burt, 51, was freed from federal prison in July after serving 30 years for drug offenses he committed when he was 20. Both men benefited from compassionate release, a once seldom used remedy that allows for sentencing reductions. The process, which is used only in extraordinary circumstances, has seen an uptick during the coronavirus pandemic, reports CBS News. Both men are at increased risk of serious illness if they contract COVID-19. Lewis suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which has him consistently connected to an oxygen tank, while Burt lives with Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease.
After exhausting release requests with the Bureau of Prisons, both men turned to the courts for relief with the help of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). Burt filed his petition in June and was released less than a month later. Petitions for compassionate release were rarely approved before enactment of the First Step Act in December 2018, which made it easier for offenders and their families to bring their request to courts. There were 145 offenders released in 2019, five times more than the year before, says the U.S. Sentencing Commission. On average, sentences were reduced by 84 months last year, compared to 68 months the year before. Two-thirds of those who successfully obtained release did so by filing requests through courts, rather than going through the Bureau of Prisons. Compassionate release differs from home confinement, which allows current inmates to serve out the remainder of their sentence from home. More than 7,600 inmates have been placed into home confinement during the pandemic.