STANLEY A. BOONE, Magistrate Judge.
Petitioner, represented by counsel, is a federal prisoner proceeding with a petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241.
Petitioner is currently incarcerated at the Correctional Institution in Taft, California ("CI Taft") serving a sentence of eighty-seven months for conspiracy to distribute more than fifty kilograms of marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. (ECF No. 1 at 1; ECF No. 12 at 1; ECF No. 12-1 at 1).
Respondent filed a response and motion to dismiss, arguing the petition should be dismissed because: (1) the petition is not ripe; (2) requests for transfer to home confinement fail to state a cognizable claim for habeas relief; and (3) Petitioner failed to exhaust administrative remedies. (ECF No. 12). Petitioner filed a traverse and opposition to the motion to dismiss. (ECF No. 13).
A federal prisoner may accelerate the date of his release from prison by receiving "good time credit,"
Section 102(b)(1)(A) of the First Step Act amends 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1) to state that a prisoner may receive good time credit "of up to 54 days for each year of the prisoner's sentence imposed by the court" and that "credit for the last year of a term of imprisonment shall be credited on the first day of the last year of the term of imprisonment." First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 102(b)(1)(A), 132 Stat. 5194, 5210 (2018).
Article III of the United States Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to "actual, ongoing cases or controversies."
Respondent argues that Petitioner's request for recalculation of his good time credits pursuant to the First Step Act is not ripe because "the section of the First Step Act relied upon, on its face is not yet effective, the Petitioner has not been denied benefit thereof," and "Petitioner seeks to challenge a potential, future sentence computation." (ECF No. 12 at 3). Petitioner contends that the issue presented in the petition is ripe for judicial review because it "is a direct legal dispute regarding the effective date of" the amendment and if Petitioner is correct that the good time credit amendment is effective immediately, then Petitioner is suffering harm because "he remains in prison when he should have already been transferred to a community corrections setting." (ECF No. 13 at 4).
"Ripeness is a justiciability doctrine designed `to prevent the courts, through avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements over administrative policies, and also to protect the agencies from judicial interference until an administrative decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way by the challenging parties.'"
"The constitutional component of ripeness overlaps with the `injury in fact' analysis for Article III standing," which inquires "whether the issues presented are `definite and concrete, not hypothetical or abstract.'"
Here, the issue presented is whether the First Step Act provision regarding good time credit is effective immediately or whether pursuant to First Step Act § 102(b)(2) the effective date is deferred until the Attorney General completes and releases the risk and needs assessment system within 210 days of the First Step Act's enactment, as required by § 101(a). The issue presented is definite and concrete, purely legal, and does not require further factual development. Petitioner contends that withholding court consideration would result in direct and immediate hardship given that if the good time credit amendment is effective immediately Petitioner should have already been transferred to a community corrections setting.
Respondent contends that the petition should be dismissed because all requests for transfers to home confinement fail to state a cognizable claim for habeas relief because the "Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to review the BOP's discretionary, individualized decisions concerning designations of the place of incarceration." (ECF No. 12 at 4). However, as noted by Petitioner in the traverse, Petitioner is not asking the Court to make or review a transfer decision, but to find the good time credit amendment provision of the First Step Act to be effective immediately. Such a finding, in turn, would increase Petitioner's good time credits and accelerate Petitioner's projected release date and RRC transfer date. Accordingly, the Court finds that dismissal is not warranted for failure to state a cognizable claim for habeas relief.
"As a prudential matter, courts require that habeas petitioners exhaust all available judicial and administrative remedies before seeking relief under § 2241."
Here, Petitioner sent a written correspondence to Respondent informing her that the instant civil action had commenced along with a copy of the petition. (ECF No. 5 at 4). In response to Petitioner's written correspondence, Respondent wrote in pertinent part:
(ECF No. 5 at 3).
As Respondent did "not have the authority [to] grant any provision of the First Step Act. . . without guidance from the Bureau of Prisons," (ECF No. 5 at 3), pursuing administrative remedies would have been futile. Accordingly, exhaustion can be waived.
Having determined that the petition is ripe and exhaustion can be waived, the Court now turns to whether the First Step Act provision regarding good time credits is effective immediately. Section 102 of the First Step Act is titled "Implementation of System and Recommendations by Bureau of Prisons," and § 102(b) concerns "Prerelease Custody." § 102, 132 Stat. at 5208, 5210. Within § 102(b)(1), titled "In General," § 102(b)(1)(A) amends 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1) to clarify that a prisoner may receive good time credit of up to fifty-four days for each year of the prisoner's sentence imposed by the court, and § 102(b)(1)(B) amends 18 U.S.C. § 3624 to add § 3624(g) regarding earned time credits. § 102(b)(1), 132 Stat. at 5210-13. The remainder of § 102(b) provides, in its entirety:
§ 102(b)(2)-(3), 132 Stat. at 5213.
In turn, 18 U.S.C. § 3632(a), as added by § 101(a) of the First Step Act, provides that "[n]ot later than 210 days after the date of enactment of this subchapter, the Attorney General, in consultation with the Independent Review Committee authorized by the First Step Act of 2018, shall develop and release publicly on the Department of Justice website a risk and needs assessment system." 18 U.S.C. § 3632(a); § 101(a), 132 Stat. at 5196.
Petitioner argues that the "application of fundamental rules of statutory construction rationally reads the delayed effective date provision as applying only to earned time credits for prerelease custody, not to good time credits." (ECF No. 13 at 7). Respondent contends that the plain text of the effective date provision, § 102(b)(2), is unambiguous. (ECF No. 12 at 3-4).
"Well-established canons of statutory construction provide that any inquiry into the scope and meaning of a statute must begin with the text of the statute itself."
Section 102(b) of the First Step Act is comprised of three components: § 102(b)(1) amends 18 U.S.C. §§ 3624(b)(1) and 3624(g); § 102(b)(2) pronounces the "effective date" of the "amendments of this subsection"; and § 102(b)(3) governs the "applicability" of the "amendments of this subsection." § 102(b), 132 Stat. at 5210-13. When read together, the Court finds that the plain and straightforward reading of the phrase "amendments of this subsection" in § 102(b)(2) refers to the amendments set forth in the entirety of § 102(b)(1) rather than being limited to the amendments in § 102(b)(1)(B). There is no ambiguity.
Petitioner argues that "the amendments in § 102(b)(1)(B) repeatedly use the same phrase `this subsection' to mean subsection (g) of § 3624, which will govern earned-time transfer to prerelease custody. That phrase—`this subsection'— does not appear in the § 102(b)(1)(A) good time fix. Thus, context strongly favors the narrow reading of delay applying only to subsection (g)." (ECF No. 13 at 7-8). The Court finds this argument unpersuasive because Petitioner fails to consider the different contexts in which the phrase "this subsection" is used. Petitioner mistakenly relies on the phrase as it appears in the quoted references to the United States Code rather than the First Step Act's original framing text.
Based on the foregoing, the plain meaning of the statutory language provides that § 102(b)(2)'s delayed effective date applies to the good time credit amendment set forth in § 102(b)(1)(A). As the Attorney General has not completed and released the risk and needs assessment system, § 102(b)(1)(A)'s good time credit amendment is not yet effective. "When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: `judicial inquiry is complete.'"
Petitioner argues that reading the delayed effective date provision as applying only to earned time credits for prerelease custody, not to good time credits, "avoids the serious constitutional problems of irrationally delaying release for a thin sliver of well-behaved prisoners defined only by the misfortune of their projected release dates." (ECF No. 13 at 7).
"Notwithstanding the importance of the text itself, we `must avoid a literal interpretation of the statute that produces an "absurd" result.'"
The Court finds that the instant case does not rise to the "rare and exceptional circumstances" required to invoke the absurdity doctrine. The Court appreciates Petitioner's argument that a delayed effective date would "depriv[e] prisoners of seven days more per year than all prisoners previously sentenced but with later release dates and all future well-behaved prisoners will receive," (ECF No. 13 at 14), but the Supreme Court has recognized that "Congress generally `intend[s] the full consequences of what it sa[ys]'—even if `inconvenient, costly, and inefficient,'"
Petitioner also argues that the good time credit provision should be effective immediately because the purpose of § 102(b)(1)(A) was to conform the statute to Congress's original intent and "[t]he government does not point to a shred of legislative history that indicates an intent — or a reason — to delay the good time credit fix." (ECF No. 13 at 10, 11-12). Petitioner relies on the summary of the Senate Report, which states that the First Step Act "[a]mends Section 3624 of title 18 of the U.S. Code to clarify congressional intent behind good time credit . . . to ensure that a prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year may receive good time credit of 54 days per year toward the service of the prisoner's sentence." Staff of S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 115th Cong., S.3649, The First Step Act Section-by-Section Summary, at 3 (Nov. 15, 2018) (emphasis added).
"The plain meaning of legislation should be conclusive, except in the `rare cases [in which] the literal application of a statute will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intention of its drafters.'"
In support of his argument, Petitioner relies on the following language from
As discussed above, the pertinent statutory language is plain, and Petitioner has not established that a literal interpretation of § 102(b)(2) will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intention of Congress.
Accordingly, the undersigned HEREBY RECOMMENDS that the motion to dismiss (ECF No. 12) be DENIED and the petition for writ of habeas corpus be DENIED.
This Findings and Recommendation is submitted to the assigned United States District Court Judge, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) and Rule 304 of the Local Rules of Practice for the United States District Court, Eastern District of California. Within