Judge rejects compassionate release for Jeffrey MacDonald, killer in notorious NC case

Jeffrey MacDonald will not receive compassionate release from prison, another setback in the ex-Green Beret’s struggle to step away from the notorious Fort Bragg murders of his family.

U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle rejected the 77-year-old inmate’s request Friday, which his lawyers urged last month due to his age, failing health and decades behind bars.

MacDonald had sought relief under the First Step Act, passed in 2018, which allowed federal inmates to be freed in rare circumstances, usually for medical or humanitarian reasons. Before the First Step Act, a motion for compassionate release had to come from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons — not the inmates themselves.

But that act updated the earlier Fair Sentencing Act, which applied only to crimes committed after 1987. The ability to seek compassionate release does not apply to “old law” defendants such as MacDonald, Boyle ruled.

“MacDonald’s arguments to the contrary are unavailing,” he wrote.

In 1970, Army investigators found MacDonald’s wife, Colette, and their two daughters, Kimberley and Kristin, beaten and stabbed to death inside their Fort Bragg home.

MacDonald, both a medical doctor and Green Beret, had a lung-puncturing stab wound in the chest. He told investigators he and his family had been slain by hippies who broke in chanting, “Acid is groovy. Kill the pigs.”

Murder charges against MacDonald were dropped that same year, but Colette’s family urged the federal courts to take up the case, resulting in his indictment, three guilty verdicts and three life sentences.

After years of legal wrangling and a brief release, MacDonald has long insisted on his innocence and sought release. The case famously unwound in Joe McGinness’ 1983 book “Fatal Vision,” based on the writer agreeing to embed with McDonald during his legal fight but ultimately becoming convinced of his guilt.

Attorneys for the ex-Green Beret doctor, now 77, argued in U.S. District Court that their client has roughly three years to live if he starts kidney dialysis. That chronic condition, coupled with skin cancer and hypertension, qualify him for release from a prison environment where COVID-19 remains a threat, his lawyers said.

MacDonald’s attorneys filed a motion in federal court in November citing staff shortages at the western Maryland prison that houses MacDonald, noting that inmates there continued making license plates even after COVID-19 cases appeared. As one factory worker there, MacDonald was placed under quarantine last year.

“We understand the court’s ruling that, due to the technical legislative history of the compassionate release statute, courts lack authority to grant compassionate release requests from ‘old law’ defendants like MacDonald who were sentenced for offenses occurring before November 1987,” said Elliot Abrams, one of MacDonald’s attorneys in Raleigh. “We appreciate the court’s consideration of our arguments and hope that Congress will enact its pending bill to correct this technical issue.”

This story was originally published April 9, 2021 at 4:33 PM with the headline "Judge rejects compassionate release for Jeffrey MacDonald, killer in notorious NC case."