Bank robber gets high court review of ballooning restitution

WASHINGTON (CN) — A Georgia bank robber secured a Supreme Court review of his restitution appeal on Monday as the justices agreed to decide if a federal law retroactively punished a man by extending his payments.

Halsey Ellingburg Jr. was sentenced to almost 27 years in prison and nearly $8,000 in restitution for a 1995 bank robbery. His prison sentence ended in 2022, but the government is still trying to collect his restitution funds.

During his sentence, Ellingburg made 36 payments totaling a little over $2,054 toward his restitution. After marking 20 years of payments in 2016, Ellingburg thought his payments would cease since his liability period expired under the Victim Restitution Act.

To his surprise, the government continued to withdraw money from his account and claimed he still owed $13,476 in restitution.

Relying on the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act, the government said Ellingburg’s restitution liability extinguishes 20 years after release from imprisonment — instead of starting the close when Ellingburg was convicted. The Mandatory Victim Restitution Act was passed in 1996, a year after Ellingburg was sentenced.

Ellingburg filed a suit in 2023, claiming that the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act’s extended liability period violated the Ex Post Facto Clause, which prohibits retroactive punishments that disadvantage offenders.

“The MVRA particularly places a heavy burden on formerly incarcerated individuals who are trying to reintegrate into society by subjecting them to restitution obligations for a longer period of time, mandatory compounding interest, the looming threat of default, and the collateral consequences that attach to potentially ongoing criminal liability, including re-incarceration,” Ellingburg wrote in his petition.

The high court granted Ellingburg’s petition, agreeing to review whether the law unfairly punished offenders.

In a separate case, the justices agreed to review an appeal from David Villarreal, who says his Sixth Amendment rights were violated during his murder trial.

The judge presiding over his trial instructed Villarreal to limit communication with his attorneys during a court recess. Villarreal was in the middle of testifying when the court broke for the day. The judge instructed Villarreal’s attorneys to avoid discussing anything related to his testimony overnight so he wouldn’t be given an unfair advantage because of a scheduling issue.

Villarreal was convicted, and the court of appeals affirmed the ruling. Villarreal said the ruling limited Supreme Court precedent protecting defendants’ Sixth Amendment rights.

“Prohibiting counsel from discussing the defendant’s testimony during an overnight recess is tantamount to preventing counsel from doing his or her job,” Villarreal wrote.

The Supreme Court will hear both appeals next term.

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