February 18, 2020
 
 President Donald Trump issued a spree of clemency decisions Tuesday for high-profile figures -- most notably commuting the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat who was convicted for attempting to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat when he was elected president. Blagojevich walked out of the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Englewood in Colorado on Tuesday night.
 
 Trump confirmed to reporters earlier Tuesday that he granted clemency for the ex-governor, calling his sentence "ridiculous." 
 
 Trump also announced he pardoned financier Michael Milken, who pleaded guilty for violating U.S. securities laws.
 
 Further, Trump confirmed he has pardoned former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was sentenced on tax fraud charges in 2010. It comes on the same day the White House announced Trump granted a full pardon to former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., who was convicted of failing to report a bribe to the former governor of Louisiana when he pleaded guilty in 1998.
 
 
 
 At Blagojevich's Chicago home, his wife's sister, Deb Mell, said that the family was thrilled, although the logistics of the former governor's return were not complete and that Patti Blagojevich would not speak to reporters until her husband returned home.
 
 "The kids are overjoyed and Patti's ecstatic," Mell said.
 
 Blagojevich was convicted in 2010 on corruption charges and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison, a sentence he has been serving at a federal prison in Littleton, Colo. Trump was considering a commutation for Blagojevich last year, but plans were put on hold amid worries over pushback.
 
 "Many people disagreed with the sentence," Trump told reporters on Tuesday, before turning to two individuals he's bashed during his time in office. "He's a Democrat, he's not a Republican It was a prosecution by the same people, [James] Comey, [Patrick Fitzgerald], the same group."
 
 Trump also expressed sympathy for the former Illinois governor's children.
 
 "Very far from his children," Trump said. "They rarely get to see their father outside of an orange uniform. I saw that and I did commute his sentence."
 
 The president sounded off on the harshness of Blagojevich's sentence -- comments that come as he's also complained about the prosecution of GOP operative Roger Stone in connection with the Russia probe.
 
 "That was a tremendously powerful, ridiculous sentence in my opinion," Trump said.
 
 Blagojevich, who hailed from a state with a long history of pay-to-play schemes, was one of four out of seven consecutive Illinois governors to be sent to prison. His immediate predecessor, George Ryan, was convicted of racketeering for his actions a governor and secretary of state.
 
 He was convicted of political corruption just months after he appeared on Trump's reality TV show, "Celebrity Apprentice."
 
 The 63-year-old Democrat exhausted his last appellate option in 2018  and had seemed destined to remain behind bars until his projected 2024 release date. His wife, Patti, went on a media blitz in 2018 to encourage Trump to step in, praising the president and likening the investigation of her husband to special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election -- a probe Trump long characterized as a "witch hunt."
 
 
 
 Blagojevich originally was convicted on 18 counts, including lying to the FBI, wire fraud for trying to trade an appointment to the Obama seat for contributions, and for the attempted extortion of a children's hospital executive. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in 2015 tossed five of 18 convictions, including ones in which he offered to appoint someone to a high-paying job in the Senate.
 
 Blagojevich became the brunt of jokes for foul-mouthed rants on wiretaps released after his Dec. 9, 2008, arrest while still governor. On the most notorious recording, he gushes about profiting by naming someone to the seat Obama vacated to become president: "I've got this thing and it's f------ golden. And I'm just not giving it up for f------ nothing."
 
 Trump tweeted about Blagojevich in August, noting that the White House's staff was looking into whether or not a commutation for Blagojevich was possible.
 
 "Rod Blagojevich, the former Governor of Illinois, was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He has served 7 years. Many people have asked that I study the possibility of commuting his sentence in that it was a very severe one. White House staff is continuing the review of this matter," the president said.
 
 Blagojevich, one of the 10 people whose sentence Trump has commuted during his presidency, also was impeached as the governor of Illinois over his conduct.
 
 Kerik was previously President George W. Bush's nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security but was later sentenced in 2010 to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty to eight felonies, including tax fraud and lying to the White House while being vetted for the Homeland Security post in 2004. He has since completed the sentence, but Trump's symbolic pardon completely clears the former New York City Police commissioner.
 
 Kerik was hailed as a hero after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and eventually showed remorse during the sentencing process.
 
 "I know I must be punished," he said before being sentenced. "I only ask that you allow me to return to my wife and two little girls as soon as possible." His daughters were 7 and 9 years old at the time.
 
 Trump pardoned Ariel Friedler, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to charges of conspiracy to access a protected computer without authorization and served two months in prison; Paul Pogue, who was convicted of underpaying on his taxes; David Safavian, who was convicted of making false statements and obstructing an investigation; and Angela Stanton, who was sentenced to home confinement for a role in a stolen vehicle ring.
 
 Trump commuted the sentences of Tynice Nichole Hall, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for allowing her apartment to be used in drug distribution; Crystal Munoz, who has spent 12 years in prison for a role she played in a marijuana smuggling ring; and Judith Negron, who was convicted for a role in a scheme to defraud the federal government.

The Maricopa County Estrella Jail location is shown on Saturday, March 21, 2020, in Phoenix. Due to the coronavirus, some Arizona sheriffs are calling for the release of certain offenders from jail and urging police agencies to issue citations rather than arrest people, including fifty inmates that have been released in Coconino County, but Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone has no intention of prematurely releasing inmates without court orders to do so.
 
 April 4, 2020
 
 CNN Wire - John Mele is one of roughly 700 inmates who were released from county jails in New Jersey to address the growing novel coronavirus pandemic. But when he was handed two bus tickets and freed, he said he was frightened, not relieved.
 
 “I was scared to leave,” Mele said. “There ain’t too much sh** that I’m scared of. I’m scared of heights and I’m scared of going to something I don’t know about.”
 
 He said he was given five minutes notice last Thursday after he was told he was leaving the jail three months earlier than his sentence for breaking into a fishing store. He had no place to go and no assurances that he was healthy.
 
 “No temperature check. Nothing. They gave me two bus tickets,” Mele said. He was steered toward a homeless shelter but said he refused, concerned the virus would be spreading inside the cramped housing complex.
 
 “I’m telling you the honest truth, if I had to go to a homeless shelter, I’m going back to jail. I’ll do something petty” to get locked up again, he said. Through a re-entry program he obtained a room in a motel near Newark airport. Mele is hoping to be granted an extension and eventually find an apartment.
 
 Jails are proving to be a breeding ground for the spread of coronavirus. As of Friday, 239 inmates in NYC jails have tested positive for coronavirus out of a population of about 4,350. The top doctor for the Rikers Island jails called it a “public health disaster.” The Legal Aid Society, which represents poor New Yorkers, said there is an infection rate of 5.4% in Rikers Island, compared with 0.53% in New York state, which has the most cases in the US.
 
 In New York, where the state system has about 43,000 people incarcerated, 36 have confirmed coronavirus cases and two prisoners have died. In the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, 15 inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Bureau of Prisons. The prison facilities house a total of 1,075 inmates, according to the BOP.
 
 The prospect of outbreaks has states, cities and counties across the country working on ways to reduce the prison population to lessen the spread of coronavirus. In St. Louis, Michigan, California, New York, and New Jersey officials are releasing certain categories of prisoners, including those who are older, have medical problems, have only a few months left on their sentence, or are held for parole violations.
 
 The criteria for release varies by state and county by county. Many are prohibiting the release of inmates with histories of sex offense, domestic violence, and murders, but in some cases those inmates have been released.
 
 There is no estimate for how many inmates who may qualify. The federal Bureau of Prisons houses 174,837 inmates nationwide, but that’s only a fraction of the millions held in local, county and state facilities around the country.
 
 The mass releases, according to government officials, lawyers and social service workers, have tested government safety nets and access to housing for many of these inmates. In normal times, there are hurdles to place inmates back into the community, but now, social service workers and government officials say, there are added factors complicating their re-entry, ranging from overcrowded housing shelters to families and landlords who won’t accept prisoners because of concerns about contagion. The rising unemployment rate is also expected to strain their access to shelter and jobs.
 
 In Michigan, the Department of Corrections is working case by case to see which inmates qualify for release from state prisons and when the prisoner doesn’t have a place to go they have run into roadblocks.
 
 “What we’re finding is the hardest part right now is finding commercial placements for individuals without family or friends,” said Chris Gautz, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. “We’re finding a lot of those are closing their doors to prisoners right now. Sometimes it’s a county health department putting up a red flag: We don’t have cases. We don’t want you to parole this person back to the community. We’re worried we might get it,” he said.
 
 The state houses 38,000 prisoners, 5,000 of which are eligible for parole, but only a fraction of them is likely to be released because of Michigan law and the qualifications.
 
 Advocates for releasing inmates say governments need to make sure they don’t create a public health problem.
 
 “Compassionate release is something that we want to do, we want to release as many people in those protected groups as we can, but I think we also have to be sure that the protections are there that those people don’t end up in worse circumstances and causing increased and enhanced infections. A lot of those people had no place to go,” said Barbara Banaszynski, the senior vice president for Program Operations at Volunteers of America, a social services organization that has helped inmates released in the southern part of New Jersey.
 
 “I’m very worried about, not only from a disease perspective but from the perspective of increasing homelessness and disease spread. They may not have Covid-19 when they come out of the facility, but if they’re on the street and vulnerable… they’re likely to contract and add to the problem,” she said.
 
 ‘When they come out of prison, it’s a ghost town.’
 
 With some newly released inmates adjusting to a world turned upside down from coronavirus is a shock to their system.
 
 “It’s been challenging, probably the most challenging in the history of our corporation,” said Dwayne Watterman, the facility director for Hudson County at the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, a nonprofit that helps inmates find housing, employment and health care.
 
 Normally he says he tries to build a connection with a new client first but now his primary role is to assure everyone they won’t be placed in danger.
 
 “Everybody’s fearful, worried, high anxiety, alert, all the time,” Watterman said. “When they come out of prison, it’s a ghost town. That’s a little shocking to people,” he added. His re-entry group has helped about 157 released under the judicial order in New Jersey, including Mele.
 
 One of the largest releases has been in New York City, where officials have freed at least 900 inmates from the Riker’s Island jail in the past few weeks. Many of them have homes they can return to, but some don’t have a place to go. Re-entry programs have helped some obtain housing vouchers or shelter, but they acknowledge it hasn’t worked perfectly.
 
 On Monday, the top prosecutors for the five boroughs in New York City sent a warning to NYC’s Department of Corrections and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office about the need for housing and support for those re-entering society.
 
 “We are concerned that the evaluation of eligibility for release appears to give little consideration to the housing, supervision and support-service needs of the individuals who are being returned to their communities: needs that, if not addressed, will only compound the possible health, safety and other risks, both to the communities and to the individuals at issue,” they wrote in a joint letter.
 
 B. Colby Hamilton, spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, said, “For those in our custody who, upon release, advise they have nowhere to go, we are working with the Office of Emergency Management and the Department of Homeless Services to help find them immediate safe housing. All others are discharged back to the communities and homes from which they came.”
 
 In New York City, housing shelters are overcrowded and potentially dangerous. The city reported five deaths from coronavirus in homeless shelters as of Thursday.
 
 New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered the release last week of up to 1,100 parole violators. “This significant action is being taken in response to a growing number of Covid-19 cases in local jails over the past few days and weeks. Our top priority remains the public health and safety of New Yorkers during this global public health emergency and this measure will further protect a vulnerable population from contracting and transmitting this infectious disease,” the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said in a statement.
 
 In Monroe County, New York, 51 prisoners were released from the county jail last weekend at the direction of the New York State Division of Parole. Eight of those inmates classified as sex offenders and 12 of them classified as “transient population” and were provided rooms at nearby hotels, according to the county’s sheriff’s office.
 
 Not everyone is on board
 
 The release didn’t go smoothly. Bill Reilich, town supervisor of Greece, New York, called it the wrong decision and pressed for the removal of the released sex offenders housed in his town. He won. The former inmates were relocated.
 
 The five districts attorneys in New York told the mayor’s office they learned that some prisoners on the lists of who could be released had histories of domestic violence and sex offenses, something they were assured would not happen.
 
 Similar concerns spilled out into the open in St. Louis after the state attorney general accused the circuit prosecutor with releasing people charged with violent felonies, according to local news outlet KSDK. The circuit prosecutor said the attorney general mischaracterized her actions.
 
 In New Jersey, last week more than 700 people were released after the chief judge of the State Supreme Court in New Jersey brokered a unique agreement with the state attorney general, county prosecutors association, public defender’s office and American Civil Liberties Union’s local chapter. The agreement would cover inmates in the county jails who are sentenced to less than a year for charges ranging from drunk driving, drug offenses, shoplifting, or low-level assault charges.
 
 Before inmates could be released, according to the judge’s order, they needed to work with the parties to develop a housing plan.
 
 Alexander Shalom, senior supervising attorney and director of Supreme Court Advocacy, for the ACLU NJ, who co-brokered the deal, said even though they have a process “that doesn’t mean is working perfectly. We don’t want people going to traditional shelters but there are short term housing and hotels. There are options out there, I don’t know if there are enough options out there.”
 
 Still he said cities and states still need to address the health risk in prisons and jails. “It is not hyperbolic to say that prisons, jails and detention centers will be incubators for this virus and people will die if we can’t thin out the populations.”
 
 For John Mele, he was placed in a Howard Johnson hotel not far from Newark airport for six nights. He walks a mile to catch a bus to head downtown where he can find food. He’s hoping to be granted an extension to stay at the hotel a little while longer until he can get back on his feet and locate an apartment for him and his girlfriend.
 
 But even that has its challenges.
 
 “A lot of people that I’ve called,” said Mele, “are not letting people look at apartments no more.”

AFTER AMENDMENT 4 WAS PASSED, FLORIDA'S GOP-CONTROLLED LEGISLATURE PUSHED THROUGH A BILL CLASSIFYING FINES AND FEES AS PART OF A SENTENCE.
 
 BY BREANNA EDWARDS · APRIL 8, 2020
 
 A federal judge on Tuesday essentially reiterated that “he said what he said,” emphasizing that a previous ruling he handed down that allowed returning citizens to vote regardless of what fines and fees they owed as a result of their past convictions applied to all ex-felons, not just the 17 citizens who sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the matter.
 
 The ruling comes as a huge win for voting rights activists, especially after Monday’s rulings by the United States Supreme Court and the Wisconsin Supreme Court regarding the state’s primary election on Tuesday.
 
 As the Post notes, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle’s ruling on Tuesday further clears the path for about 1.4 million returning citizens to exercise their right to vote.
 
 In 2018, the state voted “yeah” on Amendment 4, which sought to automatically restore the voting rights of those who have served time. However, Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature sought to put conditions on the amendment, passing a bill stating that all fines and fees were part of serving a sentence, and returning citizens had to ensure full payment before they could vote.
 
 DeSantis signed the problematic bill into law, sparking the anger of voting rights activists who said that the condition was a poll tax (and thus, illegal.) According to the Post, fines and fees owed by ex-felons who have finished their sentences and are on probation total more than $1 billion.
 
 Judge Hinkle emphasized the economic burden this condition could have on many returning citizens.
 
 “Many thousands of felons are unable to pay their relevant financial obligations because of indigency,” Hinkle said, highlighting the case of one woman who was trying to pay her fines, but because of her income wouldn’t be able to pay in full until 2031. “Still others are unable to pay because the amount owed is out of reach even for a person who is not indigent.”