The Sixth Circuit Sends An Escape Case Back For Resentencing

Darrell Walker made an exceptionally bad decision.

He was serving a prison sentence for credit card fraud, he was assigned to a halfway house at the end of his prison term (the Bureau of Prisons has federal prisoners spend the last months of a prison sentence at a halfway house as a way to reintegrate people into the community).

Mr. Walker did not return to the halfway house when he was supposed to. Indeed, he never returned at all. Twenty-two days after he left the halfway house, he was rearrested for escape.

For his twenty-two days of freedom, Mr. Walker was sentenced to three years in prison.

The Sixth Circuit reversed his sentence in United States v. Walker.

The sentencing presentation focused on how much Mr. Walker needs drug treatment. The guy has a serious drug problem, according to the description of his woes in prison.

The sentencing judge gave Mr. Walker a longer sentence than the sentencing guidelines asked for, or than the judge was otherwise inclined to give, because he wanted Mr. Walker to have more time in prison to get drug treatment.

Yet the Supreme Court rejected this as a sentencing option very recently in Tapia v. United States. A federal judge cannot give a person more time in prison just to make sure the person gets some rehabilitative benefit from prison.

Thus, Mr. Walker’s sentence was vacated, and a new sentencing hearing will have to happen.

As an aside, the Sixth Circuit opinion says that Mr. Walker escaped from supervised release. This is almost certainly wrong. The federal escape statute Mr. Walker was charged under was, likely, 18 U.S.C. S 751. This statute prohibits escape from the custody of the Attorney General (as the statement of facts in the opinion says).

If a person is in the custody of the Attorney General, the person is in prison, and not yet on supervised release. Put another way, the Sixth Circuit’s statement that Mr. Walker escaped from supervised release is not consistent with its statement that he was in the custody of the Attorney General.

It’s an odd thing – to be in prison and yet in a halfway house – but that’s how it’s done.

And I am kind of a dork for pointing that out.