Who Is Not Eligible for Compassionate Release

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

Who Cannot Get Compassionate Release From Federal Prison?

Compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) is closed to anyone with no federal sentence to reduce — state prisoners, pretrial detainees, people sentenced in D.C. Superior Court — and to federal offenders whose offense predates November 1, 1987. It is also closed to claims attacking the conviction, claims resting on a nonretroactive change in law, and rehabilitation standing alone.

Key takeaways on compassionate release ineligibility

• 28 C.F.R. § 571.64 does not do what almost every competing page says it does. It says the Bureau of Prisons “has no authority to initiate a request.” It limits the Bureau, not the court, and after the First Step Act a defendant can file the motion without the Bureau’s help. In fiscal year 2025, 369 of the 394 motions granted — 93.7% — were filed by the defendant and only 16 by the BOP Director (USSC FY2025 Compassionate Release Data Report, Table 5).
• The one group § 571.64 names that really is excluded is excluded by a different law. People who committed their federal offense before November 1, 1987 cannot file their own § 3582(c)(1)(A) motion — three published courts of appeals so hold — because the Sentencing Reform Act applies only to offenses committed after it took effect. Their statute is 18 U.S.C. § 4205(g), described at 28 C.F.R. § 571.60, and only the Bureau can invoke it.
• A sentenced federal prisoner sitting in a county jail is covered, not excluded. 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) lets the Bureau designate any facility “whether maintained by the Federal Government or otherwise.” A contract jail is a designation, not an exception.
• There is no categorical bar by offense type. “[N]o such categorical bar currently exists,” the First Circuit held in United States v. Quirós-Morales, 83 F.4th 79 (1st Cir. 2023). What the data shows is a different thing: in FY2025 no one convicted of a child-pornography offense was among the 390 people granted relief, while drug trafficking accounted for 46.4% of grants (USSC FY2025 Report, Table 8).
• The most common reason people lose is not eligibility at all. Courts cited the 3553(a) factors 1,260 times as a reason for denial in FY2025 and failure to exhaust 447 times (USSC FY2025 Report, Table 11). One of those is fatal on the current record; the other is a filing error you can fix in thirty days.
• Two Supreme Court decisions in May 2026 closed two whole categories of argument. A claim that the conviction is invalid belongs under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 after Fernandez, and a claim resting on a change in law Congress did not make retroactive is out after Rutherford. Both are covered on our page on rutherford v united states.

The Exclusion Table: Who Is Excluded, By What Authority, and What Is Available Instead

Read the third column first. Very little on this list leaves a person with nothing.

Who or what is excluded	The authority that excludes them	What is available instead
A state prisoner serving a state sentence, including one housed in a BOP facility under contract	18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) lets a federal court modify a term of imprisonment it imposed; a state sentence was imposed by a state court. Separately, 28 C.F.R. § 571.64 bars BOP from initiating	The sentencing state’s own sentence-modification, parole, and clemency processes. If the person also has a federal sentence, that federal sentence is separately eligible
A person sentenced in D.C. Superior Court under the D.C. Code and held in a BOP facility	No sentence imposed by a federal court, so nothing for a federal court to reduce; § 571.64 bars BOP from initiating under § 3582 or § 4205(g), though BOP may now move under D.C. Code § 24-403.04 (PS 5050.51 §§ 8, 12)	D.C. Code § 24-403.04, the District’s own compassionate release statute, which the defendant may file and under which PS 5050.51 § 8 now lets the person ask the Bureau to move; D.C. Code § 24-403.03 for offenses committed before the 25th birthday; parole through the U.S. Parole Commission (D.C. Code § 24-131)
A person sentenced in federal district court for D.C. Code offenses	Not excluded. § 571.64 limits BOP only (Greene; Hammond)	File the § 3582(c)(1)(A) motion in the federal court that imposed the sentence, after asking the warden
A federal offender whose offense was committed before November 1, 1987	The Sentencing Reform Act applies only to later offenses — Jackson, 991 F.3d 851 (7th Cir. 2021); King, 24 F.4th 1226 (9th Cir. 2022); Rogge, 141 F.4th 902 (8th Cir. 2025)	Ask BOP to move under 18 U.S.C. § 4205(g), described at 28 C.F.R. § 571.60, which reduces a minimum term to time served so parole becomes available (PS 5050.51 § 5 adds an “old law” elderly screen: 70 or older, 30 years served, no parole hearing yet held); parole itself through the U.S. Parole Commission; clemency lawyers
A pre-November 1, 1987 offender with a non-parolable sentence	28 C.F.R. § 571.64, sentence two — BOP “cannot initiate such a motion” even under § 4205(g)	Executive clemency (28 C.F.R. § 1.1); 28 U.S.C. § 2255 or § 2241 if the sentence or its execution is unlawful. This is the one genuinely closed door on the judicial-mercy side
Someone in pretrial detention, not yet sentenced	§ 3582(c) modifies “a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed.” Nothing has been imposed	18 U.S.C. § 3142(i) temporary release; reopening the detention hearing; 18 U.S.C. § 3143 release pending sentence
Someone sentenced but not yet in BOP custody — awaiting designation or self-surrender	United States v. Fower, 30 F.4th 823 (9th Cir. 2022) — you cannot exhaust by writing to a warden at a facility you have not been designated to	Ask the court to defer the surrender date; § 3143; then request from the warden once designated and file after 30 days
A sentenced federal prisoner held in a contract county jail or private facility	Not excluded. 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) — BOP may designate a facility “whether maintained by the Federal Government or otherwise”	Send the request to the chief executive of the facility and to BOP, document the date, and file 30 days later
A claim that the conviction is invalid — innocence, Brady, ineffective assistance, trial error	Fernandez v. United States, 146 S. Ct. 1292 (2026) — that claim must proceed under § 2255	A § 2255 motion, subject to a one-year clock. See compassionate release vs 2255
A claim resting on a nonretroactive change in law, alone or combined with other factors	Rutherford v. United States, 146 S. Ct. 1320 (2026); USSG § 1B1.13(b)(6) is invalid to that extent	Establish eligibility on other grounds first; under USSG § 1B1.13(c) the change may then inform how much of a reduction is warranted. See unusually long sentence
Rehabilitation standing alone	28 U.S.C. § 994(t) and USSG § 1B1.13(d)	Rehabilitation counts in combination — § 1B1.13(d) says so, and it was the single most-cited reason courts gave when granting relief in FY2025 (95 citations, Table 10). Also bop first step act credits and rdap federal prison
Anyone invoking § 3582(c)(1)(A)(ii) without a § 3559(c) sentence	18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(ii) requires age 70, 30 years served on a sentence imposed under 18 U.S.C. § 3559(c), and a BOP Director determination	Proceed under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) instead, where age and health are governed by USSG § 1B1.13(b)(2). See compassionate release for elderly inmates
Someone who already received a sentence reduction, was released, and is back in BOP custody	PS 5050.51 § 3: people who received a reduction, were released and returned to custody “are not eligible for RIS consideration,” and the warden will deny their requests. A Bureau screen only; neither § 3582(c)(1)(A) nor USSG § 1B1.13 contains it	Send the request anyway, because the warden’s receipt starts the 30-day clock, then file the § 3582(c)(1)(A) motion; the court applies § 1B1.13, not the Bureau’s screen
Someone who has not asked the warden	§ 3582(c)(1)(A) — the court cannot act until administrative rights are exhausted or 30 days pass from the warden’s receipt	Send the request today. This is the most repairable item on the page. See compassionate release request to warden
Someone the danger finding or the § 3553(a) factors will defeat	USSG § 1B1.13(a)(2) imports § 3142(g); § 3582(c)(1)(A) requires weighing § 3553(a)	Not a legal exclusion — a record problem. Build the compassionate release plan, then see danger to the community
A person whose offense of conviction is serious or unpopular	Not excluded. “[N]o such categorical bar currently exists” — Quirós-Morales, 83 F.4th 79 (1st Cir. 2023)	The offense is weighed under § 3553(a), not treated as a bar. See what do judges consider when sentencing

Two BOP Screens That Are Not the Court’s Test

The Bureau of Prisons decides whether it will file a motion. A federal judge decides whether you get a sentence reduction. Those are two separate questions governed by two separate bodies of rules, and nearly every mistaken “you are not eligible” on the internet comes from reading a Bureau document as if it stated the court’s test. Since the First Step Act, the Bureau’s own view is nearly beside the point: it filed 16 of the 394 successful motions in FY2025 (USSC FY2025 Report, Table 5).

28 C.F.R. § 571.64, sentence by sentence

The regulation is titled “Ineligible offenders,” which is where the trouble starts. Here is what it actually says, in its entirety:

The Bureau of Prisons has no authority to initiate a request under 18 U.S.C. 4205(g) or 3582(c)(1)(A) on behalf of state prisoners housed in Bureau of Prisons facilities or D.C. Code offenders confined in federal institutions. The Bureau of Prisons cannot initiate such a motion on behalf of federal offenders who committed their offenses prior to November 1, 1987, and received non-parolable sentences.

Every operative verb in that regulation is about what the Bureau may do. It contains no instruction to any court. That is not a lawyer’s gloss — it is how the courts that have looked at it have read it. In United States v. Hammond the government relied on § 571.64 to argue that a defendant with D.C. Code convictions was ineligible; the court answered that “whether BOP believes it possesses the power to move for compassionate release on behalf of a particular defendant has little bearing on whether a court may grant relief to a defendant under the compassionate release provision when the defendant himself has filed such a request,” and held that “the federal compassionate release provision is better read as a procedural mechanism that applies to all sentences imposed by federal courts.”

United States v. Greene, 516 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2021) said it more directly still: a BOP policy limiting the agency “says nothing about a federal court’s ability to modify the term of imprisonment that it previously imposed on such a D.C. Code offender upon the defendant’s request,” because a pronouncement like that “cannot override, or contradict, the plain text of section 3582(c)(1)(A).” Greene granted the motion and reduced a 35-years-to-life sentence to time served after 49 years.

The state-prisoner line, and where it actually falls

A state prisoner does not lose federal compassionate release because of § 571.64. A state prisoner never had it, for a much simpler reason: § 3582(c) governs when a federal court may modify a term of imprisonment, and a state sentence was not imposed by a federal court. The regulation exists because state prisoners do sometimes end up in federal facilities — 18 U.S.C. § 5003 lets the BOP Director contract with a state “for the custody, care, subsistence, education, treatment, and training of persons convicted of criminal offenses in the courts of such State.” Being housed in a federal building does not convert a state judgment into a federal one. (The traffic runs the other way too, which is what our page on state prison designation covers.)

The practical version: if the judgment says State of ___ v. and a state judge signed it, the route is that state’s sentence-modification, medical-parole, or clemency process, and no federal filing will reach it. If the person has both a state sentence and a federal one, the federal sentence is separately eligible on its own terms, and the interaction between the two is worth an hour with counsel before anything is filed.

Pre-1987 offenders: a real bar, from a different statute

This is the group where the popular framing and the law converge, but for the wrong reason. People who committed a federal offense before November 1, 1987 — “old law” prisoners — genuinely cannot file their own compassionate release motion. The reason is not § 571.64. It is that the Sentencing Reform Act, which created § 3582(c) in the first place, applies only to offenses committed after it took effect.

Three published circuit decisions say so. The Seventh Circuit held in United States v. Jackson, 991 F.3d 851 (7th Cir. 2021) that “§ 3582 remains inapplicable to old-law prisoners,” reasoning that the First Step Act “provides that § 3582(c)(1)(A) is being amended, not that § 3582 as a whole is being repealed,” and “did not modify the transition language from 1984 and 1987.” The Ninth Circuit followed in United States v. King, 24 F.4th 1226 (9th Cir. 2022): “inmates who committed crimes before November 1, 1987, cannot move for compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1), as amended by the FSA,” and “can gain compassionate release only if the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) requests it on the prisoner’s behalf under 18 U.S.C. § 4205(g).” The Eighth Circuit reached the same result in United States v. Rogge, 141 F.4th 902 (8th Cir. 2025), calling it a question of first impression there: “Because Rogge falls within this category of ‘old law’ offenders, his case is governed by § 4205(g). Only the BOP may initiate a compassionate release request on his behalf, and it did not do so here.”

What § 4205(g) does is narrower than what § 3582(c)(1)(A) does. 28 C.F.R. § 571.60 describes it: “a sentencing court, on motion of the Bureau of Prisons, may make an inmate with a minimum term sentence immediately eligible for parole by reducing the minimum term of the sentence to time served.” It works through the parole system rather than around it — which is also why King held the cutoff is not absurd: “parole remains available to inmates who committed crimes on or before October 31, 1987.” A companion regulation, 28 C.F.R. § 572.40, states the two-track rule plainly: § 4205(g) “was repealed effective November 1, 1987, but remains the controlling law for inmates whose offenses occurred prior to that date.”

Now read § 571.64’s second sentence again. It removes even the § 4205(g) route from pre-1987 offenders with non-parolable sentences. That is coherent on the regulation’s own terms — § 4205(g) operates by reducing a minimum term so parole can begin, and a sentence carrying no parole eligibility has no minimum term to reduce — but the practical result is a small population with no judicial mercy route at all. For them the remaining options are executive clemency and, if the sentence or its execution is unlawful, § 2255 or a habeas corpus attorney filing under § 2241.

The Bureau’s own screens under PS 5050.51: one dropped, one added

Until September 3, 2026, BOP Program Statement 5050.50 § 4 contained a screen that appears on no court’s checklist: “Elderly inmates who were age 60 or older at the time they were sentenced ordinarily should not be considered for RIS if their current conviction is listed in the Categorization of Offenses Program Statement.” “RIS” is reduction in sentence — the Bureau’s internal name for compassionate release. It was a rule about which requests the Bureau would forward. It had no counterpart in USSG § 1B1.13, and no judge applied it.

PS 5050.51, which replaced PS 5050.50 on September 3, 2026, dropped that screen; offense conduct now enters the Bureau’s review only as one of its § 9 factors. Anyone told after that date that a loved one was screened out under the old age-60 rule should ask the warden, in writing, which policy was applied. PS 5050.51 adds a different screen: people who received a reduction in sentence, were released, and returned to Bureau custody for a supervised release violation or a new conviction “are not eligible for RIS consideration,” and the warden will deny their requests (§ 3, p. 4). That too is a rule about which requests the Bureau will forward; neither § 3582(c)(1)(A) nor § 1B1.13 contains it. Our reference page on bop program statement 5050.51 sets out the Bureau’s full internal criteria.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The sentence families quote to me most often is a case-manager’s line that “you’re not eligible.” Nine times out of ten what that means is that the person does not meet the Bureau’s internal screening criteria. Under PS 5050.50, which governed until September 3, 2026, those were the 18-month terminal prognosis, the 50% or 75% time-served thresholds and the age-60 offense screen; none of those numbers appear in § 1B1.13. PS 5050.51 dropped them, but whatever the Bureau’s current screen says, it is not what a district judge applies to a defendant-filed motion. The Bureau’s answer is a data point about whether the Bureau will file. It is not a ruling, and it does not close the courthouse. The one thing to take from a “no” is the date the request was received, because that date starts the 30-day clock that lets you go to the judge without them.

People With No Federal Sentence to Reduce

Section 3582(c) opens with a prohibition: “The court may not modify a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed,” followed by a short list of exceptions. Compassionate release is one of them. The whole apparatus presupposes an imposed federal term of imprisonment. Where there is none, there is nothing to reduce, and the motion fails on arithmetic rather than on the merits. Four situations account for nearly all of these, and two of them are commonly misdiagnosed in both directions.

Pretrial detainees

A person held before trial has not been sentenced. No motion under § 3582(c)(1)(A) is available, no matter how serious the medical situation. The federal analogue is 18 U.S.C. § 3142(i), which lets the judicial officer “by subsequent order, permit the temporary release of the person, in the custody of a United States marshal or another appropriate person, to the extent that the judicial officer determines such release to be necessary for preparation of the person’s defense or for another compelling reason.” That last clause is the one used for medical emergencies and family crises during pretrial detention, and it is decided by the same judge, on the same docket, usually much faster than a § 3582 motion. Where the detention order itself is the problem, reopening the detention hearing is the other route. After conviction and before the sentence is imposed, 18 U.S.C. § 3143 governs.

People serving a state sentence

Covered above, and worth repeating in one line because families ask it constantly: the federal statute cannot reach a state judgment, and the fact that the person is physically inside a federal building does not change that.

The contract-county-jail wrinkle, which cuts the other way

Thousands of sentenced federal prisoners are held in county jails and privately operated facilities under contract rather than in a BOP-run institution. They are not excluded. 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) authorizes the Bureau to “designate any available penal or correctional facility that meets minimum standards of health and habitability established by the Bureau, whether maintained by the Federal Government or otherwise.” A contract designation is a designation. The sentence is a federal sentence, the Bureau has custody under § 3621(a), and § 3582(c)(1)(A) applies in full.

The real difficulty is procedural rather than substantive: a county jail has a sheriff or a facility administrator, not a BOP warden, and § 3582(c)(1)(A) speaks of “the warden of the defendant’s facility.” The workable answer is to send the request to the facility’s chief executive and to the Bureau, keep proof of the date each was received, and file after 30 days. Our page on compassionate release request to warden sets out what the request must contain under 28 C.F.R. § 571.61 and how to document delivery.

People not yet in BOP custody

Someone who has been sentenced but is awaiting designation, or is out on a self-surrender date, cannot exhaust — and therefore cannot yet file. The Ninth Circuit decided this in United States v. Fower, 30 F.4th 823 (9th Cir. 2022), where the defendant had written to the warden of the facility he thought he would be sent to. The court’s reasoning is mechanical and hard to argue with: “the statute states that the defendant’s request must be addressed to ‘the warden of defendant’s facility,’ which cannot be known until there has been a designation by the BOP. This is further evidence that the statute contemplates that the defendant must be in a BOP facility before qualifying for compassionate relief.” Fower had in fact guessed wrong about his own destination.

That is a timing exclusion, not a permanent one. The remedies before custody are a motion to defer the surrender date, release pending appeal or sentence under § 3143, and — once designated — an immediate request to the actual warden. For a first-time federal defendant with a serious medical condition, front-loading the medical record into the designation request often matters more than anything filed afterward.

Claims Excluded By What They Argue, Not By Who Files Them

Three categories of argument are now out of bounds regardless of who the movant is or how sympathetic the facts are. Two of the three closed on May 28, 2026.

A claim that the conviction is invalid

In Fernandez v. United States, 146 S. Ct. 1292 (2026), the Supreme Court held that “[a] prisoner who collaterally attacks the validity of his conviction must proceed through 28 U.S.C. § 2255, not 18 U.S.C. § 3582.” The line the Court drew is between what happened at trial and what is happening now: “When a prisoner moves for compassionate release based on a terminal illness, his motion does not suggest that his conviction is invalid. But if a prisoner moves for relief because of alleged problems with the underlying criminal investigation or trial, his motion suggests that his conviction is flawed” (slip op. at 14–15). Innocence, Brady violations, ineffective assistance, and sentencing-guidelines error all fall on the § 2255 side.

This exclusion carries a deadline the others do not. Section 2255 has a one-year limitation period under § 2255(f), and a pending compassionate release motion does not pause it. Filing the wrong motion can therefore cost the right one. That trade-off is worked through on compassionate release vs 2255, and the calendar itself on federal appeal deadline.

A claim resting on a change in law Congress did not make retroactive

In Rutherford v. United States, 146 S. Ct. 1320 (2026), decided the same day, the Court held that a sentencing disparity created by a nonretroactive change “considered by itself or in combination with other factors” cannot make a prisoner eligible, and that USSG § 1B1.13(b)(6) is “invalid to the extent that it counsels otherwise.” That category — the “unusually long sentence” provision — was the second most-cited reason courts gave for granting relief in FY2025, at 80 citations (USSC FY2025 Report, Table 10), and it is still printed in the current Guidelines Manual with nothing on the page to say it has been narrowed.

Two limits on Rutherford matter to anyone reading this as a total shutdown. The Court expressly reserved the broader question: “We need not decide whether there are reasons beyond personal circumstances that could qualify as ‘extraordinary and compelling'” (slip op. at 10–11). And USSG § 1B1.13(c) still permits a change in the law to inform how much of a reduction is warranted once eligibility is established on other grounds. The argument moved; it did not vanish. Both points are developed on unusually long sentence.

Rehabilitation standing alone

Congress wrote this one into the statute books in 1984 and it has not moved since: “[r]ehabilitation of the defendant alone shall not be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason,” 28 U.S.C. § 994(t). The Sentencing Commission repeats it at USSG § 1B1.13(d) — “rehabilitation of the defendant is not, by itself, an extraordinary and compelling reason” — and then adds the sentence people miss: “However, rehabilitation of the defendant while serving the sentence may be considered in combination with other circumstances in determining whether and to what extent a reduction in the defendant’s term of imprisonment is warranted.”

The data shows courts taking that second sentence seriously. Rehabilitation was the single most-cited reason courts gave when they granted relief in FY2025 — 95 citations, 15.1% of all reasons given (USSC FY2025 Report, Table 10) — and the Commission’s own footnote records that “[i]n all cases where the court gave rehabilitation as a reason for the granted motion, the court also gave one or more other reasons.” On the other side, “rehabilitation insufficient” was cited 524 times as a reason for denial (Table 11). Read together, those two numbers say something precise: a record of programming, work, education, and clear conduct is close to necessary and nowhere near sufficient. It is the second half of a motion, never the first.

The § 3582(c)(1)(A)(ii) Route Almost Nobody Qualifies For

Compassionate release has two doors, and the second one is nearly walled shut. Nearly everything on this site concerns § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” route. Subsection (ii) is a separate path that requires no extraordinary and compelling showing at all — and three conditions that almost no one satisfies together.

Requirement of § 3582(c)(1)(A)(ii)	Why it closes the door
At least 70 years of age	Five years older than the age threshold in USSG § 1B1.13(b)(2). The average age of people whose motions were decided in FY2025 was 51 for those granted and 47 for those denied (USSC FY2025 Report, Table 6)
At least 30 years served	Half the people granted relief in FY2025 had an original sentence of 20 years or more (USSC FY2025 Report, Figure 2) — and that is the sentence imposed, not the time served. The group that has actually served 30 years is far smaller
Served “pursuant to a sentence imposed under section 3559(c)“	This is the federal three-strikes statute: mandatory life for a serious violent felony after two prior serious violent felonies, or one serious violent felony plus one serious drug offense. Very few federal sentences are imposed under it, and time served on any other sentence does not count
A determination by the BOP Director that the person is not a danger under § 3142(g)	The one element the movant cannot supply. Unlike the (i) route, which the First Step Act opened to defendants, (ii) still requires the Bureau to make an affirmative finding

The Bureau’s own policy shows the mismatch. PS 5050.51 § 5 sets a “New Law” elderly category at 70 years old with 30 years served and no § 3559(c) limit (p. 6). Its predecessor, PS 5050.50, acknowledged the gap in a footnote — “[t]hese criteria are different from those provided in 18 U.S.C 3582(c)(1)(a)(ii)” — and PS 5050.51 keeps the difference without the footnote. The Bureau’s internal category is broader than the statute it is named after.

The consequence shows up in the denial data. Courts cited failure to meet the § 3559 age and time-served test 120 times as a reason for denial in FY2025 (USSC FY2025 Report, Table 11) — 120 motions that ran at the wrong door. If age and declining health are the story, the route is § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) with USSG § 1B1.13(b)(2), which asks for 65 years of age, serious deterioration from aging, and the lesser of 10 years or 75% of the sentence. That is a materially easier test, and it is covered in full on compassionate release for elderly inmates.

The Threshold Nobody Should Fail: Asking the Warden

This is not an exclusion. It is the single most repairable defect on this page, and courts cited it 447 times as a reason for denial in one year.

Under § 3582(c)(1)(A), a federal court may act on a defendant’s motion only “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.” Two independent routes; the 30-day one is faster and is what nearly everyone uses. Send the request, keep proof of the date, wait thirty days, file.

Failure to exhaust was cited 447 times as a reason for denial in FY2025 — 8.8% of the 5,067 reasons courts gave — and 136 times in the first half of FY2026 (USSC FY2025 and FY2026 Q1–Q2 Reports, Table 11). Those are not weak cases. Many of them are cases that were never reached. And a denial for failure to exhaust is ordinarily without prejudice, which means the same person can cure the defect and refile, though that costs months. Whether the grounds raised with the warden must match the grounds raised in court is a live disagreement among the circuits, which is one more reason to write the request as broadly as the facts allow. The mechanics, the required contents under 28 C.F.R. § 571.61, and the appeal routes under 28 C.F.R. § 571.63 are on compassionate release request to warden, and the timeline that follows is on how long does compassionate release take.

Exclusions That Are Practical, Not Legal

The largest category of people who will not obtain compassionate release are not excluded by any rule. They are eligible, they file, and they lose — because the judge weighs the danger finding or the sentencing factors against them. Treating those as eligibility questions is the most common analytical mistake in this area, and it produces both false hope and false despair.

The danger finding. USSG § 1B1.13(a)(2) requires the court to find that the person “is not a danger to the safety of any other person or to the community, as provided in 18 U.S.C. § 3142(g)” — importing the pretrial-detention factors wholesale into a post-conviction motion. “Protection of the public” was cited 143 times as a denial reason in FY2025 (USSC FY2025 Report, Table 11). This is a finding about the present and the future, and it is answered with a record: medical incapacity, age, institutional conduct, supervision conditions, and a concrete place to live. See danger to the community.

The § 3553(a) factors. These are the largest single cause of denial — 1,260 citations in FY2025, 24.9% of all reasons given for denial (Table 11). A court may deny on § 3553(a) alone without ever deciding whether the reasons were extraordinary and compelling. That means a motion can be strong on eligibility and still lose in a paragraph. See 3553(a) factors.

Offense type is not a bar — and the data is not a rule. The First Circuit addressed this directly in United States v. Quirós-Morales, 83 F.4th 79 (1st Cir. 2023), vacating a denial that had reasoned the seriousness of the offense made the defendant ineligible: “To the extent that this statement could be read to imply that Quirós’s particular crime of conviction poses a categorical bar to compassionate release, we agree with Quirós that no such categorical bar currently exists.” The court added the honest other half: “Certainly, the gravity of the underlying offense is relevant to a judge’s consideration when deciding a compassionate-release motion.”

What the outcome data shows is worth stating alongside it, precisely because it is not a rule. Of the 390 people granted relief in FY2025 whose offense type the Commission recorded, none had a child-pornography offense, while 82 people with that offense type were among the 2,386 denied. Drug trafficking accounted for 181 grants, 46.4% of the total, and murder for 26, 6.7% (USSC FY2025 Report, Tables 8 and 9). Those are observed outcomes across one year in one dataset. They tell you what the climb looks like. They do not tell any judge what to do, and no court is bound by them.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: The most useful question at intake is not “does he qualify.” It is “what would the government file in opposition, and what does our record say back.” A motion that clears every eligibility hurdle and has nothing to say about § 3142(g) or § 3553(a) is a motion that will be denied on a page and a half. The record that answers those two findings is usually assembled from documents that already exist and that nobody has ordered yet — the medical duty status, the Care Level designation, the disciplinary history, the programming transcript, the release address with a signed statement from whoever lives there. When the answer today is genuinely no, the second question is what would have to change for it to be yes, and how long that takes. Sometimes the honest advice is to wait eighteen months and file once.

If You Are Excluded, These Routes Remain

The third column of the table above names the alternative. This section is about how each one actually works — who files it, where it goes, and what it can change — because “try clemency instead” is not advice until someone says what that involves.

Route	Who may file, and where	Deadline	What it can change
D.C. Code § 24-403.04 compassionate release	The defendant, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C., the Bureau of Prisons, or the U.S. Parole Commission, in D.C. Superior Court	None	Modification of a D.C. Code sentence on terminal illness, age 60 with 20 years served, or other extraordinary and compelling reasons
D.C. Code § 24-403.03	The defendant, for an offense committed before the 25th birthday, after 15 years served	None	Reduction of a D.C. Code sentence where the interests of justice warrant it
18 U.S.C. § 4205(g), described at 28 C.F.R. § 571.60	Only the Bureau of Prisons, in the sentencing court, for pre-November 1, 1987 offenses	None	Reduces a minimum term to time served, making the person immediately parole-eligible
18 U.S.C. § 3142(i) temporary release	The detained defendant, before the judicial officer handling the case	None	Temporary release from pretrial detention for defense preparation “or another compelling reason”
18 U.S.C. § 3622 furlough	Requested from the Bureau of Prisons, not a court	None	Up to 30 days out to visit a dying relative, attend a funeral, or obtain “medical treatment not otherwise available”
28 U.S.C. § 2255	The defendant, in the sentencing court	One year under § 2255(f)	Vacates, sets aside, or corrects an unlawful conviction or sentence. See federal 2255 motion lawyer
28 U.S.C. § 2241	The prisoner, in the district of confinement, after exhausting administrative remedies	None	Sentence computation, jail credit, good time, and First Step Act credit disputes — how the sentence is executed, not whether it was lawful
BOP administrative remedies, 28 C.F.R. § 542.13–542.15	The prisoner — informal resolution first (commonly called the BP-8), then BP-9, BP-10, BP-11	The BP-9 is due within 20 calendar days of the date the basis for the request occurred (§ 542.14(a))	Medical care, housing, programming, and staff decisions inside the institution. See bop administrative remedy program
Executive clemency, 28 C.F.R. § 1.1	The petitioner, to the President through the Pardon Attorney	None	Commutation of any federal sentence, including where no judicial route remains. See what does it mean to commute a sentence
Statutory release mechanisms	Administered by the Bureau of Prisons	Ongoing	First Step Act time credits, rdap federal prison early release, and federal home confinement placement. Overview at early release from prison

Three of these deserve a sentence of their own. The § 3622 furlough is the most overlooked item on the list: where the need is a specific, time-limited event — a parent dying, a funeral, a procedure the institution cannot perform — a 30-day furlough is a smaller ask than a sentence reduction and goes to a decision-maker who can act in days. Clemency has no eligibility rule a court enforces, which makes it the residual route for the pre-1987 non-parolable population and for anyone whose judicial options have closed; start at clemency lawyers. And a denial is not always the end — a second motion is permitted on materially different circumstances, which is covered at can you file compassionate release twice and compassionate release denial.

If you are still working out whether the route is open at all, the plain-language starting points are what is a compassionate release and the compassionate release definition. If the ground is medical, compassionate release medical condition explains what the record has to show; if it is a family crisis, caregiver compassionate release; and if the person was harmed in custody, victims of sexual abuse lawyer covers the one 2023 ground the Supreme Court left untouched in 2026.

Why work with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best is the founder and Principal Attorney of Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C., a boutique firm devoted to federal criminal appeals and post-conviction relief. Over more than 20 years she has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record. She is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — and has appeared pro hac vice in federal courts from Montana to Florida. She is recognized by Best Lawyers in America 2026 for Appellate Practice and by Chambers USA 2026 for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, was named South Carolina Public Defender of the Year in 2010, and is the author of Reversing Your Criminal Conviction: Develop Your Winning Strategy (2023). She serves as Board Chair of Justice 360.

Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, is the firm’s Managing Director and a nationally recognized federal prison expert. He is the author of the Federal Prison Handbook, Directory of Federal Prisons, Prison Education Guide, and College for Convicts, and serves as Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Defense Center. He has been quoted as a federal prison expert by outlets including CNN, the Associated Press, and The Washington Post. He earned his J.D. at the University of California, Davis School of Law after serving roughly a decade in the federal Bureau of Prisons, where he became an award-winning incarcerated journalist.

A compassionate release motion is filed in the federal district court that imposed the sentence, wherever in the country that court sits, and the firm runs a national federal practice from offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Christopher Zoukis leads the firm’s prison consulting work — designation, sentence computation, medical-care advocacy, First Step Act credits, and reentry planning — which is often where an excluded case finds its actual remedy. The legal work on any motion, brief, or appeal is handled by Elizabeth Franklin-Best and the firm’s attorneys. The general entry points are federal compassionate release attorney and compassionate release attorneys.

Talk to a federal compassionate release lawyer

If you came here to find out whether a route is closed, the fastest way to know is to look at three documents: the judgment (which court imposed the sentence, and on what date the offense occurred), the inmate’s current designation, and any written response from the warden. Those three answer most of the questions on this page in about twenty minutes.

Call (843) 620-1100 or schedule a consultation directly. We handle compassionate release motions, § 2255 motions, appeals, and BOP administrative matters in federal courts nationwide, and we will tell you when the answer is no and where else to look. Rates by district vary widely — see compassionate release grant rate — and where a case was sentenced is part of any honest assessment. For the statutory framework in full, start at federal compassionate release lawyers.

Frequently Asked Questions About Compassionate Release Eligibility

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026