Judge unable to halt ex-deputy's sentence

A former Arkansas County sheriff's deputy won't be released early from a federal prison in Ohio because of concerns about a coronavirus outbreak there, a federal judge in Little Rock said Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. said he doesn't have jurisdiction to order the federal Bureau of Prisons to alter the sentence of Charles David Chastain, 49, of Stuttgart, who in July was sentenced to 2½ years in prison on extortion convictions stemming from a February jury trial in Little Rock. A jury found that Chastain bribed an informant to steal an all-terrain vehicle and obtain stolen guns for him in 2017, when Chastain volunteered on a drug task force.

Chastain's attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Molly Sullivan, asked April 10 that Chastain be released and allowed to serve the remaining two-thirds of his sentence at home, citing his moderate asthma and obesity as conditions putting him at high risk of catching the virus.

Federal prosecutors objected, arguing that the federal prison system has to consider "many challenging factors" when deciding which prisoners it can release early as a result of the pandemic, and also has to uphold its duty to society to keep prisoners behind bars.

On Tuesday, Marshall said he was sympathetic to Chastain's situation, acknowledging that if Chastain is infected, he will probably face heightened risks because of his underlying health problems. But, he said, "the Court does not have the power to rewrite the statute."

Marshall was referring to a statute allowing a sentence to be reduced to time-served. He noted that Chastain has served about eight months of his sentence and is due to be released in October 2021.

"Just last summer, Judge [Leon] Holmes concluded that a sentence of thirty months was fair and just; and that was an eleven-month variance from the low end of the advisory Guidelines range," Marshall said. He took over the case after Holmes retired, and was referring to federal sentencing guidelines that suggest a penalty range based on particular crimes and the surrounding circumstances.

Chastain is an inmate at the Elkton federal correctional facility in Lisbon, Ohio, where the virus has infected prisoners and staff, and is spreading. A lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners at Elkton led a federal judge in Ohio to order the facility to quickly identify at-risk inmates who could be transferred within two weeks. However, the government has since appealed the ruling, stalling action.

Marshall noted that Chastain has now received an official denial from the warden of the Ohio facility, and said it can still be appealed through the Bureau of Prisons, so he hasn't exhausted his administrative remedies, as the law requires before a judge can consider the issue. He noted that Sullivan asked him to bypass the exhaustion requirement because of an emergency situation, but said the law doesn't allow that option.

Marshall noted that the prison system might have other remedies, such as furlough or transfer, that will provide some relief to Chastain.

Metro on 04/29/2020

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