Notable (and notably little) early coverage of USSC’s decision to make new criminal history rules retroactive

As noted in this post, last week the US Sentencing Commission voted to make its new criminal history amendments retroactive.  According to the USSC’s calculations, this decision will enable roughly 18,500 federal prisoners to obtain reduced sentence (and may lead to tens of thousands of additional federal prisoners to seek a reduction.  And yet, this big and impactful federal sentencing development has seemingly received almost no significant attention in the media or anywhere else that I have seen. 

Specifically, I have only seen two media pieces on the decision:

From Law360, “Sentencing Commission Backs Retroactive Cuts For 1st Timers“

From Forbes, “Sentencing Commission OKs Retroactive Reduction For Many Inmates“

Helpfully, Thomas Root over at LISA Foundation has a pair of posts providing some more coverage and context: 

• Criminal History Guidelines Going Retro By Narrowest of Margins
• Mr. Explainer’s “How-to” On Applying For Retroactivity

I suspect that there may be considerable additional public and private discussions of the USSC’s consequential actions among various criminal justice insiders, but I am still somewhat surprised that major action by the leading federal sentencing agency has not generated broader discussion.  Of course, the USSC’s actions do not allow reduced sentences and federal prisoner releases to become effective until February 2024, so maybe the absence of an immediate impact is a small part of this story.  (But, notably, there is news of a kind of delayed/uncertain action coming from another federal agency today (basics here) that seems certain to generate nearly endless attention.)