FWIW, the manufactured outrage that she got to “pick where she spent her sentence” is particularly misplaced and a good example of some shitty journalism (in this case, I think it is sourced back to US Weekly) performed by someone who doesn’t know how criminal justice works and doesn’t care to learn. That then gets amplified and repeated until it’s accepted as gospel.
She didn’t get to “pick where she spent her sentence,” she asked for a designation request, which is what literally EVERY single person being sentenced to prison in Federal court asks for. The vast majority ask for something close to their home, and unless there are specific security concerns, the judge usually signs off on the request. But the Bureau of Prisons, NOT the judge (and definitely not the defendant) make the ultimate decision based on capacity.
There are a lot of good reasons for prisoners to get some kind of say in where they serve their sentence, at least to the extent practicable. There is an enormous amount of data showing that cutting off a convict from seeing their friends and family during their sentence is counter-productive and leads to bad outcomes.
