United States v. Koons

• Decision Date: 21 April 2020
• Docket Number: CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 16-214-05
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Lionel KOONS
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana

455 F.Supp.3d 285

UNITED STATES of America

v.Lionel KOONS

CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 16-214-05

United States District Court, W.D. Louisiana, Shreveport Division.

Signed April 21, 2020

Earl M. Campbell, John Aaron Crawford, Tass Dever Waterston, U.S. Attorneys Office, Shreveport, LA, for United States of America.

MEMORANDUM RULING

ELIZABETH E. FOOTE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Before the Court is an emergency motion for release to supervised release or home confinement pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), or alternatively, a motion for judicial recommendation for release to home confinement, filed by the Defendant, Lionel Koons ("Koons"). Record Document 317. The Government opposes Koons's motion. Record Document 322. For the following reasons, Koons's motion is denied.

I. Background

Koons was employed by Explo, a company located on the property of Camp Minden in the Western District of Louisiana. Explo demilitarized military munitions and resold the recovered energetic material to mining operations. Koons was Explo's Traffic and Inventory Control Manager, and he oversaw the receipt and shipment of munitions and bombs for Explo. He also coordinated the movement of munitions and material around the vast Camp Minden property leased by Explo. In October of 2012, there was an explosion at the Explo facilities that caused localized damage and an evacuation of residents within close proximity to the Camp Minden property. It was ultimately discovered that Koons and his co-defendants had been improperly storing explosive material and propellants on the Explo property and submitting false documentation to the United States Army to conceal their conduct. A federal grand jury indicted Koons on thirty-one counts of various federal crimes, including criminal conspiracy, false statements, and wire fraud.

Koons entered a guilty plea to one count of false statements and on November 29, 2018, was sentenced to 41 months' imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $92,921.00.¹ Koons reported to the Bureau of Prison's ("BOP") designated facility on January 14, 2019 and is currently housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas. Koons's projected release date is in December 2021.²

Due to COVID-19, Koons seeks a modification of his term of imprisonment to allow him to be released on supervised release or home confinement, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c). The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC") have declared a global pandemic related to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, a strand of the novel coronavirus. The CDC has advised that persons over the age of sixty-five and those with certain underlying medical conditions are considered high risk and are particularly susceptible to contracting the virus. In light of this pandemic, the President of the United States has declared a national emergency and many governors have declared public health emergencies. The CDC and all health authorities have strenuously recommended social distancing as a means of limiting community spread of the virus. On a federal level, the President has advised against any gatherings of groups larger than ten people, and that is only when absolutely necessary. Many states, including Louisiana, are subject to stay-at-home orders that are still in place at this time.

The prison population is particularly at risk due to the conditions of confinement, the close contact of inmates, and the inability to maintain social distancing. Responding to this concern, Section 12003(b)(2) of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the "CARES Act") "expand[s] the cohort of inmates who can be considered for home release." Pursuant to that provision of the CARES Act, United States Attorney General William Barr issued an April 3, 2020, memorandum instructing the BOP to maximize transfer to home confinement of "all appropriate inmates held at FCI Oakdale, FCI Danbury, FCI Elkton, and similarly situated BOP facilities where COVID-19 is materially affecting operations." See Memorandum from Attorney General William Barr to Director of Bureau of Prisons, The Increasing Use of Home Confinement at Institutions Most Affected by COVID-19 (April 3, 2020), https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus (last visited 4/13/2020). The April 3 memo urged the BOP to undertake its review urgently and assess inmates with high risk factors for COVID-19 who would be appropriate candidates for release. If they are deemed good candidates, the Attorney General instructed the BOP to immediately process the respective inmates and to immediately transfer those inmates to their homes, after a fourteen-day quarantine. The BOP responded to confirm the urgency of the situation and announced that it is reviewing all inmates who satisfy the Attorney General's criteria for release. It has committed additional resources to complete this task as quickly as possible.

In this case, Koons is sixty years old and allegedly suffers from high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and acid reflux.³ He submits that he is considered high risk for contracting or becoming severely ill from COVID-19. Koons notes that he is currently housed in a dormitory with seventy-three other inmates, many of whom perform janitorial work and come into daily contact with BOP employees. In short, Koons's argument is that his age, medical conditions, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the living conditions in which he is housed constitute extraordinary and compelling reasons to warrant his release from BOP. He asks that his sentence be modified to allow him to serve the remainder of his sentence on supervised release or home confinement.

In response, the United States argues that Koons is not entitled to the relief requested because he has failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with the BOP and, therefore, the Court does not have jurisdiction to consider his motion. Even if the Court had jurisdiction, the United States contends that Koons has failed to demonstrate the necessary "extraordinary and compelling reasons" required by the compassionate release statute.

II. Law and Analysis.

A. Exhaustion of Remedies

Koons has filed his motion for a sentence modification under the First Step Act of 2018. He asks the Court to grant him compassionate release per 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).⁴ This allows for the modification of a term of imprisonment upon a finding that certain extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant a reduction in an inmate's sentence. As amended by the First Step Act in December of 2018, the compassionate release provision provides:

(c) Modification of an Imposed Term of Imprisonment.—The court may not modify a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed except that—

(1) in any case—

(A) the court, upon motion of the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, or upon motion of the defendant after the defendant has fully exhausted all administrative rights to appeal a failure of the Bureau of Prisons to bring a motion on the defendant's behalf or the lapse of 30 days from the receipt of such a request by the warden of the defendant's facility, whichever is earlier, may reduce the term of imprisonment (and may impose a term of probation or supervised release with or without conditions that does not exceed the unserved portion of the original term of imprisonment), after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, if it finds that—

(i) extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction ...

and that such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission ....

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).

Although sentence reductions under § 3582 historically could be ordered only upon a motion by the Director of the BOP, the First Step Act of 2018 amended the statute to allow prisoners to petition the district courts as set forth above. However, as the statute makes plain, prior to filing motions for release in the district court, a prisoner must first exhaust his administrative remedies either by fully exhausting administrative appeals of the BOP's decision not to file a motion for compassionate release on his behalf, or by filing the motion with the court after a lapse of 30 days from the date of the warden's receipt of his request for release, "whichever is earlier." 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). The administrative-exhaustion provision is set out in mandatory terms—the district court can modify a sentence only after the defendant has exhausted administrative remedies. This mandatory language includes no exceptions, equitable or otherwise.

Here, Koons has not alleged that he made a request for compassionate release with his warden, that the request was denied, or that the request has gone unanswered for 30 days. Instead, he concedes that he has not satisfied the statutory exhaustion requirements. Thus, by filing the instant motion, Koons seeks to bypass the governing provisions of the compassionate release statute by having this Court waive the exhaustion prerequisite due to the grave dangers presented by COVID-19. Unfortunately for Koons, the Court has no power to waive the exhaustion requirement. The Supreme Court has stated that "[w]here Congress specifically mandates, exhaustion is required." McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U.S. 140, 144, 112 S.Ct. 1081, 117 L.Ed.2d 291 (1992), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 740–41, 121 S.Ct. 1819, 149 L.Ed.2d 958 (2001) ; see also Booth, 532 U.S. at 741 n.6, 121 S.Ct. 1819 ("we will not read futility or other exceptions into statutory exhaustion requirements where Congress has provided otherwise."); see generally Ross v. Blake, ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 1850, 1856–57, 195 L.Ed.2d 117 (2016) (reviewing the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act and explaining that "mandatory [statutory] language means a court may not excuse a failure to exhaust"; This is because "a...