First Step Act Compassionate Release.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Ross Thacker

Case No.: 20-2943

Officials: SYKES, Chief Judge, and SCUDDER and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.

Focus: First Step Act Compassionate Release

Ross Thacker is serving a 33-year federal sentence for a series of armed robberies he committed in 2002. The sentence included so-called stacked penalties imposed to run consecutively to one anotherfor two convictions under 18 U.S.C. 924(c) for using and carrying a firearm during two of the robberies. The first 924(c) conviction resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence of 7 years, and the second added a mandatory consecutive sentence of at least 25 years. In September 2020 Thacker invoked 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1)(A) and sought to reduce his sentence based not only on the health risks of exposure to COVID-19 within prison, but also on the amendment Congress enacted in the First Step Act of 2018 to limit the circumstances in which multiple sentences for...