Red Redding, Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption, commented that “prison time is slow time” and that “prison life consists of routine, and then more routine.” Those observations are certainly true in regard to the resentencing of Jamie Olis.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals set aside Olis’ original 24+ year sentence on October 31, 2005.

Since that time, Olis has spent most of his time in a small prison cell in the Federal Detention Center in downtown Houston waiting to be resentenced as the prosecution engaged in a series of delaying tactics over most of the past year relating to its new expert report on the key issue in Olis’ resentencing — the alleged market loss attributable to the criminal acts for which Olis was convicted.

Finally, yesterday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake scheduled Olis’ resentencing hearing for September 12, 2006, almost 11 full months after the Fifth Circuit ordered it.

Although the Olis court docket indicates that the prosecution has still not filed its new expert report on the market loss issue, my sense is that some form of it has been provided to the Olis defense team because Judge Lake ordered Olis to respond to the prosecution’s report by August 18 and for the prosecution to file any reply by September 1.

Meanwhile, the sad case of Jamie Olis remains a stark reminder of the injustice that is inevitable when the state is allowed to use its overwhelming prosecutorial power to regulate corporate agency costs.