Recent amendments to federal sentencing guidelines have made thousands of prisoners across the country eligible for early release — including some high-profile defendants from Hawaii. 

Among them are former Rep. Ty Cullen and former state Sen. J. Kalani English, both convicted on bribery charges. Former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, however, tried and failed to get his sentence cut.

The sentencing guidelines, which can be applied retroactively, mainly affect prisoners who had no criminal histories before their convictions. Motions for sentence reductions began to be filed in February, when retroactive implementation of the amended guidelines took effect.

Dozens of defendants in Hawaii have applied, including white-collar criminals convicted in some of the state’s most notorious public corruption cases. 

Cullen, sentenced to two years in prison in April for taking more than $25,000 in cash bribes, had his sentence reduced to 19 months. 

English, a former Maui lawmaker who was sentenced in 2022 to 40 months on bribery counts, will now get out of prison eight months early. 

Former Maui Environmental Management Director Stewart Stant, handed a 10-year sentence in February 2023 for playing a role in directing nearly $20 million in single-source contracts to a wastewater company, got one year slashed off his sentence. 

And Wayne Inouye, Honolulu’s former chief building inspector who was sentenced in connection with taking more than $100,000 in bribes while working for the Department of Planning and Permitting, will now serve four years instead of five.

Retired federal public defender Ali Silvert said amending the country’s sentencing guidelines is important, especially given that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. The average amount of time federal prisoners spend behind bars is about 12 years, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

But Silvert noted that the system has been historically lenient with white-collar criminals. Drug offenders, on the other hand, are still often punished harshly, even if they’re convicted of a nonviolent or first-time offense, he said.

For example, first-time offenders caught with 5 grams or more of meth face a mandatory minimum sentences of five years. Public officials charged with bribery or extortion usually face between a year and three months to a year and nine months, according to sentencing guidelines.

“You could be very low level. You could be the person who didn’t even know what was in the package that you were paid to deliver to another person, that’s the sentence you get,” he said. “That just seems totally unjust compared to white-collar fraud criminals and politicians who could be swindling hundreds of thousands of dollars of our taxpayer money and then get a very low sentence.”

‘Zero-Point’ Offenders

The recent amendments to the sentencing guidelines mainly affect first-time offenders or those who committed their crimes while serving on probation, parole, supervised release or some other form of criminal justice sentence. 

“Zero-point offenders,” or those with no criminal histories, may be eligible for sentence reduction as long as their cases don’t involve certain disqualifying factors, such as violence, firearms, a sex offense or a hate crime, according to the sentencing commission. 

Also, fewer “status points” will be doled out to re-offenders who commit crimes while already serving a sentence, such as probation or parole, as long as the offense is not violent and the defendant doesn’t have a serious criminal history. 

Previously under the guidelines, an offender would receive two “status points” if they committed a crime while serving a different sentence, regardless of their criminal history. 

The status points bumped many offenders into higher sentencing levels, but the sentencing commission found that having status points wasn’t as strong an indicator of recidivism as previously thought. A study of offenders released in 2010 found that those who had similar criminal backgrounds were rearrested at the same rates, regardless of whether or not they had status points. 

Most sentences reductions will be by 12 months or less, the commission predicted. 

The amendments will make more than 18,700 prisoners eligible for early release nationwide, including 77 Hawaii defendants, according to the commission. 

A High-Profile Exception 

While many of Hawaii’s most notorious corruption defendants will be getting out of prison early, there’s one notable exception — Louis Kealoha. 

Kealoha, representing himself, filed a motion in February arguing that he should be eligible for a 16-month sentence reduction because he does not have a criminal history. He worked as a “law-abiding, contributing citizen” prior to his offense and will “continue working to reconcile as a productive member of society upon release,” he wrote in the motion. 

The ex-Honolulu police chief was convicted in 2019 of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for his role in plotting to frame his wife’s uncle for stealing the couple’s mailbox. His wife, former prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, was also convicted of the offenses. 

Louis Kealoa is currently serving his seven-year sentence at a federal facility in Sheridan, Oregon. 

U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright denied Louis Kealoha’s request for early release. He wrote in an opinion that Kealoha could not qualify as a “zero-point offender” because of the serious role he played in the crimes and his abuse of power as police chief. 

Seabright wrote that even if Kealoha would have been eligible to have his sentence reduced, the judge would still have denied the request “given that Kealoha repeatedly abused his position of trust.” 

Victor Bakke, a former Honolulu prosecutor who is now a defense attorney, said Kealoha should have been eligible for the reduction because of his lack of a criminal history, but judges aren’t required to follow the sentencing guidelines. The Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the guidelines should be advisory rather than mandatory.

“They’re not law, they’re not binding on the judge,” Bakke said. “But the judges are required to give them great weight in determining a sentence.”

Retroactive Sentence Reductions

While the sentencing commission amends its guidelines almost annually, the changes usually only affect future sentencing. 

The last time the commission allowed sentences to be reduced retroactively was in 2014 when the commission passed the “Drugs Minus Two” amendment. 

The amendment allowed the severity of a defendant’s drug offense to be reduced based on the quantity of drugs involved. Nationwide, 31,908 motions for sentence reduction were granted after the amendment passed. On average, qualifying drug offenders’ sentences were reduced by about two years. 

Thousands of prisoners have also achieved sentence reductions since the First Step Act of 2018 allowed older defendants or those with certain medical conditions or extenuating family circumstances to seek compassionate release.