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Judge refuses earlier release for post-Katrina shooter

Robert Faulcon is currently set for release on Dec. 25, 2020. He sought an earlier release based on 2018 prison reform legislation.
Credit: AP
FILE - In a Friday, Jan. 5, 2007 file photo, former New Orleans police officer Robert Faulcon, Jr. leaves the city jail in New Orleans. Faulcon, a former New Orleans police officer in federal prison for his role in the deadly shooting of unarmed civilians amid post-Hurricane Katrina chaos in 2005 is asking for an earlier release. Faulcon filed his request Friday, May 31, 2019 at U.S. District Court. It cites last year’s federal prison reform legislation.(AP Photo/Steve Kashishian, File)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has denied a request to order an earlier release date for a former New Orleans police officer convicted in deadly shootings of unarmed civilians following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Robert Faulcon is currently set for release on Dec. 25, 2020. He sought an earlier release based on 2018 prison reform legislation.

The First Step Act included provisions allowing federal inmates to earn 54 days a year of good behavior credit rather than 47. However, U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown said in a ruling Monday that the good behavior provision doesn't take effect until July. She said Faulcon's request for an immediate recalculation of his sentence "lacks merit."

Faulcon sought an Oct. 20, 2020, release date with home confinement beginning in April.

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