Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05290/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05290-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 7, 2014 Decided September 2, 2014 

No. 12-5290 

RONNIE LEROY HOWARD, 

APPELLANT

v. 

CAUFIELD, WARDEN AND UNITED STATES PAROLE 

COMMISSION, 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:09-cv-00211) 

Beverly G. Dyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender, 

argued the cause for appellant. With her on the brief was A.J. 

Kramer, Federal Public Defender. 

Ronnie Leroy Howard, pro se, filed briefs for appellant. 

Katherine M. Kelly, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, John P. 

Mannarino, and Carolyn K. Kolben, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an 

appearance. 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 1 of 23
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Before: ROGERS, GRIFFITH and PILLARD, Circuit Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD. 

PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Ronnie Leroy Howard appeals 

the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Howard 

is a federal parolee with an expected parole termination date 

of June 5, 2016.1 He seeks immediate release from parole, 

contending that procedural irregularities relating to parole 

revocations in 1985 and 2004 warrant habeas corpus relief. 

Howard makes three roughly distinct challenges to his 

federal parole. First, he argues that the U.S. Parole 

Commission (“Commission”), through a “Notice of Action” 

following a 1985 parole revocation hearing, ordered that the 

first five years of an intervening state sentence, from 1982 to 

1987, would run concurrently with his federal sentence, but 

 

1

 Effective November 1, 1987, the Sentencing Reform Act of 

1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, § 212(a)(2), 98 Stat. 1837, 1999 (1984), 

“eliminated most forms of parole in favor of supervised release, a 

form of postconfinement monitoring overseen by the sentencing 

court, rather than the Parole Commission.” Johnson v. United 

States, 529 U.S. 694, 696-97 (2000) (citing Gozlon-Peretz v. United 

States, 498 U.S. 395, 400-01 (1991)); see 18 U.S.C. § 3583. 

Congress has extended the federal parole system seven times to 

allow the Commission to continue monitoring the handful of 

individuals, like Howard, who were sentenced for offenses 

committed before November 1, 1987, and who remain on federal 

parole. See, e.g., United States Parole Commission Extension Act 

of 2013, Pub. L. No. 113-47, § 2, 127 Stat. 572 (2013) (extending 

parole through 2018). The primary difference between parole and 

supervised release is that the latter is an additional, independent 

term of supervision imposed at sentencing, whereas parole is 

granted to individuals already serving a term of confinement, 

allowing them to complete an existing sentence of incarceration 

outside of prison. 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 2 of 23
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failed to treat them as concurrent. But for the Commission’s 

failure to run his terms concurrently, as Howard says the 

Commission informed him it would, he would now be free 

from parole. Howard’s claims arising out of that alleged 

surprise reversal fail because they all rest, at bottom, on a 

misreading of the admittedly opaque Notice of Action, which 

directed that the specified five years would run consecutively. 

Second, Howard makes several arguments founded on his 

contention that the Commission did not properly execute, or 

never executed, a 1982 parole violator warrant it lodged 

against him. At the conclusion of the three day evidentiary 

hearing in this case, the magistrate judge found that the 

Commission executed the 1982 warrant on July 21, 1987. 

Howard argues, however, (1) that the magistrate judge’s 

factual finding was clearly erroneous, (2) that the magistrate 

judge abused her discretion and violated his due process 

rights by failing to aid him in calling additional witnesses at 

the evidentiary hearing whose testimony could have helped 

him to prove that the Commission did not execute the warrant 

in 1987, and (3) that he received ineffective assistance of 

counsel because his attorney failed adequately to press his 

warrant execution argument and failed adequately to help him 

to locate and procure his witnesses. All of Howard’s claims 

relating to the execution of his 1982 parole violator warrant 

fail, however, because Howard had no right to have the 

warrant executed, and the Commission had no obligation to 

execute it. It is thus immaterial whether the Commission ever 

executed the 1982 parole violator warrant. 

Finally, Howard contends that the Commission executed 

a separate 1998 parole violator warrant in 2000 or 2002, but 

delayed the associated parole revocation hearing until 2004. 

He argues that that multiyear delay between execution and 

revocation was unreasonable and prejudicial, and therefore 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 3 of 23
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violated his due process rights. The magistrate judge found, 

however, that the Commission executed the 1998 parole 

violator warrant in 2004. Howard’s petition raises no grounds 

warranting reversal of that determination, and Howard does 

not argue that the minor delay between his 2004 warrant 

execution and 2004 revocation hearing violated his right to 

due process. 

Because none of Howard’s claims merits habeas relief, 

we affirm the judgment of the district court denying his 

petition. 

I. 

Howard is a serial recidivist who has served time in 

prison for various federal and state crimes and is currently on 

federal parole, with an expected parole termination date in 

2016. He is a 67-year-old Vietnam veteran who has struggled 

for much of his life with addictions to cocaine and other 

drugs. He has kidney disease, which, at the time of his 

petition, did not yet require dialysis treatment. 

The concurrent 20- and 25-year federal sentences for 

which Howard remains on parole were for two bank robberies 

Howard committed in 1970. Howard was imprisoned at the 

Lorton Reformatory Adult Services Complex, a federal 

penitentiary in Lorton, Virginia, but escaped in the early 

1970s by climbing a fence, adding 15 months to his sentence. 

Several years later, Howard again gained release on parole, 

but a further series of crimes, state sentences of 

imprisonment, and corresponding breaks in and violations of 

his federal parole had, by 2011, pushed Howard’s parole 

termination date from 1996 to 2022. After Howard filed this 

case, the Commission reduced Howard’s parole term, giving 

him an anticipated release date in 2016. 

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Howard traveled a circuitous path to 20 extra years of 

federal penal supervision. After Howard served nine years in 

federal prison, the government paroled him in 1979. While he 

was on parole, Howard committed serious crimes in Virginia, 

including armed robbery. In 1982, the Commission issued a 

“parole violator warrant” for Howard for those and other 

parole violations. A parole violator warrant is a warrant 

issued by the Commission pursuant to its authority to “retake” 

parolees who have violated their federal parole and return 

them to federal prison—or at least formally to return them to 

the custody of the Attorney General. 18 U.S.C. § 4213(a)(2). 

The Commission did not immediately execute the warrant and 

return Howard to federal prison, however, because by then he 

was in state prison pursuant to his 1982 conviction and 18-

year sentence for armed robbery in violation of Virginia law. 

In 1985, while Howard was incarcerated in Virginia, the 

Commission conducted a “dispositional revocation hearing” 

to determine what effect Howard’s parole violations would 

have on completion of his federal sentence. At a dispositional 

revocation hearing, or parole revocation hearing, the 

Commission may revoke parole and return an individual to 

federal prison, id. § 4214(d), and, where a parolee is 

convicted of a crime “punishable by a term of imprisonment” 

during his release on parole, the Commission may also 

determine that his time already spent on parole does not count 

toward his underlying sentence, id. § 4210(b)(2); see also 28 

C.F.R. § 2.52(c)(2). The Commission is also permitted to toll 

a parolee’s federal sentence while he serves a term of 

imprisonment for another offense. 18 U.S.C. § 4210(b)(2) 

(“[T]he Commission shall determine . . . whether all or any 

part of the unexpired term [of the original sentence] being 

served at the time of parole shall run concurrently or 

consecutively with the sentence imposed for the new 

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offense . . . .”); see also Santa v. Tippy, 14 F.3d 157, 158-59 

(2d Cir. 1994).

At Howard’s revocation hearing, the Commission 

decided to revoke his parole and not to credit the six years he 

had been out on parole toward his federal sentence. The 

Commission further determined that Howard, who was still 

incarcerated in Virginia, would not resume earning credit 

toward his federal sentence until 1987. As the magistrate 

judge explained, the decision of the Commission “effectively 

tolled his federal sentence by 60 months.” App. at 689. 

The Commission informed Howard of its findings 

through a Notice of Action, the disputed meaning and legal 

effect of which are central to this appeal. A Notice of Action 

is, inter alia, a document that the Commission must provide 

to a parolee following a parole revocation proceeding. See, 

e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 4214(e); 28 C.F.R. § 2.13(c). As relevant 

here, following a parole revocation hearing, the Commission 

must “furnish the parolee with a written notice of its 

determination.” 18 U.S.C. § 4214(e). Howard’s Notice of 

Action following his 1985 parole revocation hearing 

attempted to communicate to him that the Commission had 

decided to revoke his parole and deny him credit for the six 

years he had spent on parole since his release from federal 

prison in 1979 (including the time he had already served in 

prison in Virginia). The Notice of Action also sought to 

inform him that time would again start counting towards his 

federal sentence upon his release from Virginia custody into 

federal custody or after he spent an additional five years in 

state prison. No part of his first five years in Virginia 

custody, were he to serve that long, would count toward his 

federal sentence. 

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In 1987, with Howard still imprisoned in Virginia, his 

federal parole began to run again. The effect of the 

Commission’s decision was to move back eight years, from 

1996 to 2004, the date of expiration of Howard’s federal 

sentence. Because of his various parole revocations and 

withdrawals of parole credit, Howard was back at square one 

with respect to his remaining 17-year federal sentence.2

 It 

was as if the sentence had been reset to 1979, when he was 

released on parole, and the eight years between then and 1987 

never happened. 

In 1992, after Howard served nine years in state prison, 

Virginia paroled him, and he remained on parole, not 

reincarcerated, pursuant to his federal sentence. In the 

ensuing years Howard again violated his federal parole by 

committing cocaine-related crimes and other offenses in 

violation of Virginia law. In 1998, the Commission issued a 

new parole violator warrant for Howard, charging him with 

parole violations dating back to 1992, including the cocainerelated crimes. At the urging of Howard’s federal probation 

officer, however, in order to afford Howard an opportunity to 

participate in a non-prison-based drug treatment program 

through the Veterans Administration, the Commission 

ordered the 1998 warrant be held in abeyance and did not 

immediately arrest Howard and return him to prison. In 2000, 

the Commission—apparently by mistake—issued a second 

warrant listing the same charges plus two additional technical 

parole violations for Howard’s failure to report a change of 

residence and failure to submit required reports. The 

Commission withdrew that second warrant in 2001. 

Meanwhile, the March 1998 warrant remained in abeyance. 

 

2

 Howard had 17 years remaining on his 26-year term, having 

served nine years in federal prison from 1970 to 1979 that, unlike 

years served as parole, could not be revoked. 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 7 of 23
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In 2002, Virginia arrested, tried, and convicted Howard 

of the possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, 

sentencing him to two years imprisonment. Shortly 

thereafter, the Commission supplemented its 1998 parole 

violator warrant to include the 2002 arrest and ordered that it 

be reactivated. The Commission ordered that Howard be 

arrested or, if he was already in Virginia custody, that the 

warrant be lodged as a “detainer” at the institution where he 

was being held. A warrant lodged or placed as a detainer 

instructs another jurisdiction that is holding an individual not 

to release him until the warrant-issuing jurisdiction has had an 

opportunity to take him into custody. Moody v. Daggett, 429 

U.S. 78, 80 n.2 (1976). 

Upon Howard’s release from Virginia custody in 2004, 

federal officials executed the 1998 warrant and took Howard 

into federal custody, incarcerating him at the AlbemarleCharlottesville Joint Security Complex. The Commission 

conducted a parole revocation hearing 127 days later and 

found that Howard had violated the conditions of his parole. 

As it had in 1987, the Commission reset Howard’s parole 

clock, revoking the approximately 17 additional years he had 

spent on federal parole since 1987, and assigning him a new 

release date in 2021. Subsequent parole violations added to 

his sentence, moving his release date to 2022.

In 2006, Howard, who was no longer incarcerated, began 

to seek relief in federal court from his continuing federal 

parole. The district court in 2010 construed one of his 

complaints as a petition for habeas corpus, directed the 

Commission to show cause why the writ should not issue, and 

referred the petition to a magistrate judge. Howard’s petition 

argued, among other things, that between 1982 and 1987 his 

federal and state sentences should have run concurrently, and 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 8 of 23
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that his 2004 parole revocation hearing was unreasonably and 

prejudicially delayed. 

In light of that petition, the Commission reconsidered 

Howard’s parole term. The Commission found that 

irregularities associated with the execution of his 1998 parole 

violator warrant, along with his illness and advanced age, 

justified a reduction in the term. The Commission elected to 

credit him with approximately five years toward his parole 

termination date, revising it from 2022 to 2016. 

The magistrate judge held a three-day evidentiary hearing 

in 2011 and issued a Report and Recommendation denying 

Howard’s habeas petition. The district court adopted the 

Report and Recommendation. This appeal followed. 

II. 

In reviewing a district court’s decision to grant or deny a 

habeas corpus petition, we review its factual findings for clear 

error, see Amadeo v. Zant, 486 U.S. 214, 223 (1988), and its 

legal conclusions de novo, see Barhoumi v. Obama, 609 F.3d 

416, 423 (D.C. Cir. 2010). 

A. 

The Commission did not improperly deny Howard credit 

towards his federal sentence from 1982 to 1987 when he was 

a prisoner in Virginia. Howard pins his argument on 

language in the Notice of Action the Commission issued 

following his 1985 parole revocation hearing. Appellant Br. 

at 15, 21-30. The paragraph—under a heading that states that 

at the conclusion of Howard’s hearing “the following action 

was ordered” (hereinafter the “order”)—explains: 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 9 of 23
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Revoke parole; none of the time spent on parole shall 

be credited. The unexpired portion of your federal 

sentence shall commence upon your release from state 

custody or upon federal reparole to your state 

sentence, whichever comes first. Continue to a 

presumptive parole from the violator term after the 

service of sixty months (July 1, 1987).3

 

3

 The language of the Notice of Action is almost certainly adapted 

directly from the Commission’s Rules and Procedures Manual. The 

1984 Manual instructs that Commission orders revoking time and 

retroactively denying credit for street time should read: 

Revoke parole; none of the time spent on parole shall be 

credited. The unexpired portion of your federal sentence 

shall commence upon your release from state custody or 

upon federal reparole to your state sentence, whichever 

comes first; 

. . . (Continue for a presumptive) parole from the violator 

term (date). 

U.S. Parole Comm’n, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Rules and Procedures 

Manual 168 (1984) (“1984 Manual”) (parentheses in original). 

Very similar language appears in the current Rules and Procedures 

Manual. See U.S. Parole Comm’n, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Rules and 

Procedures Manual 282 (2010) (“2010 Manual”). Because the 

Commission’s guidelines instruct the Commission what to say in its 

Notices of Action, these confusing and ungrammatical phrases have 

been repeated verbatim in innumerable Notices of Action 

nationwide for decades. This lack of clarity is troubling because a 

Notice of Action is the document meant to communicate to a 

parolee how his sentence has been recalculated and thus how much 

more time he must spend in custody—whether in prison or on 

parole. The Notice of Action should inform the parolee’s critical 

decisions about, for instance, whether to take an appeal. The 

government should place a high priority on writing such documents 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 10 of 23
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All parties agree that the phrase “violator term” refers to 

Howard’s underlying federal sentences for which he was 

scheduled to serve 26 years. The parties also agree that the 

order revoked Howard’s parole and denied him credit for his 

three years of street time—time spent free on parole—

between 1979 and 1982. 

The meaning of the remainder of the order is contested. 

Howard argues that it “can only be interpreted to impose a 

concurrent term from 1982-1987,” i.e. as announcing that his 

state sentence and federal parole ran concurrently rather than 

consecutively. Appellant Br. at 21 (emphasis added). The 

government disagrees, contending that the Notice of Action 

“makes clear it will not give [Howard] credit toward his 

original federal sentence for all of the time spent in state 

prison, and therefore, the sentences were consecutive, not 

concurrent.” Appellee Br. at 36-37. 

Howard contends that the district court must be reversed 

for legal error because he is entitled to release based on his 

interpretation of the Notice of Action. But the district court’s 

erroneous interpretation of the Notice of Action matters only 

if Howard has some underlying right to relief that turns on 

what it says. Howard’s briefing focuses on the Notice of 

Action’s convoluted wording, apparently to support a claim 

that it violated his rights by failing to give him adequate 

notice that his terms ran consecutively. If Howard indeed 

received no reasonable notice of the Commission’s decision 

and was prejudiced thereby, he might have a due process 

claim. See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 489 (1972). 

Whatever the precise nature of his claim, however, Howard 

 

in plain English. One would reasonably expect that the 

Commission could draft more plainly the language that it intends be 

used to inform uncounseled laypeople in federal custody of matters 

vitally affecting their freedom. 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 11 of 23
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has advanced no ground warranting habeas corpus relief. The 

Notice of Action, despite its painful legalese, ordered his 

sentences to run consecutively. Together with his 

participation in his 1985 parole revocation hearing and his 

receipt in 1987 of other Commission documents reflecting the 

consecutive sentence, the Notice of Action adequately 

informed Howard of the Commission’s decision to run his 

terms consecutively. 

The parties spar over the appropriate level of deference 

the Court should afford to the Commission’s interpretation of 

the Notice of Action. Howard argues for no deference; the 

Government for maximal deference. Appellant Br. at 16-20; 

Appellee Br. at 29-32; see also Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 

452, 461 (1997). A decision regarding the precise degree of 

scrutiny is unnecessary, because, even when we review it 

without deference, we find that the Commission’s Notice of 

Action makes sufficiently clear that Howard’s Virginia and 

federal sentences would run consecutively. 

The second sentence of the order sets the date on which 

Howard’s federal sentence would again start to run as one of 

two dates, “whichever [came] first”: either (a) his “release 

from state custody,” i.e., when Virginia released him from 

prison; or (b) “federal reparole.” App. at 83. The date of 

Howard’s “federal reparole” is specified by the final sentence, 

which provides that Howard would “[c]ontinue to a 

presumptive parole from the violator term”—that is, his 26-

year federal sentence—“after the service of sixty months (July 

1, 1987).” Id. In other words, even though Howard’s federal 

and state sentences were not generally concurrent, the Notice 

of Action provided that Howard would become presumptively 

entitled to concurrent federal reparole after 60 months, 

running the federal clock again even if he were then still in 

Virginia custody. Howard remained in Virginia state prison 

USCA Case #12-5290 Document #1510145 Filed: 09/02/2014 Page 12 of 23
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until 1992—after July 1, 1987—and therefore the second 

alternative “[came] first” and Howard was “reparoled to [his] 

state sentence,” so the state sentence started counting as 

service of federal parole as of July 1987. 

Howard argues that our reading of the Notice of Action is 

too generous, and that the key words, “from the violator 

term,” cannot bear the meaning the Commission and the court 

ascribe to them. In Howard’s view, the Commission could 

not “reparole” him “from” a violator term unless he was in 

fact serving time toward that violator term when he was 

reparoled “from” it. Thus, the sentence that reads “[c]ontinue 

to a presumptive parole from the violator term after the 

service of sixty months (July 1, 1987)” implies, in Howard’s 

estimation, that the notice of action imposes a concurrent term 

from 1982 to 1987. Appellant Br. at 21-22. Howard argues 

that the words “from the violator term” are used elsewhere in 

the Notice of Action to mean what he says they do. For 

example, in the “Reasons/Conditions” section the 

Commission explains: “If you are still in state custody as of 

the above date [July 1, 1987], you will have a presumptive 

parole from the violator term to your state sentence on the 

above date.” App. at 83. Again, according to Howard, the 

government could not have paroled him “from” his violator 

term unless he was already serving it concurrently with his 

state sentence. Thus Howard argues that the Notice of Action 

states that his federal sentence was to run concurrently with 

his Virginia sentence. Howard further contends that the 

default presumption should be that federal and state sentences 

run concurrently, unless the Commission speaks clearly to the 

contrary. Because, in his view, “nowhere did the Commission 

explicitly impose a consecutive sentence” in his case, his time 

spent in Virginia must be credited toward his federal sentence.

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We disagree. The language of the “order” section of the 

Notice of Action is admittedly confusing. It does not 

explicitly say that Howard’s state and federal terms are to run 

consecutively. But once we parse it carefully and in context, 

we understand the Notice of Action to state the Commission’s 

determination that Howard’s terms were to run consecutively. 

To read the Notice of Action as Howard suggests ignores the 

fair import of its words. The phrase “parole from the violator 

term” is not meant to indicate that he would have been 

serving the violator term immediately before the 

recommencement of parole; instead, “parole from the violator 

term” simply identifies the criminal sentence from which, for 

the Commission’s purposes, he would be paroled—i.e. that 

the parole pertains to the federal sentence of incarceration, or 

“violator term.” According to the Notice of Action, Howard 

was to be returned to parole “from,” as in originating in or 

relating to, his federal violator term. 

This understanding is reinforced by the remainder of the 

Notice of Action’s text. On the same page as the disputed 

“order” paragraph, the Notice of Action’s 

“Reasons/Conditions” section explains that, if Howard were 

still in state custody as of July 1, 1987, he would “have a 

presumptive parole from the violator term to [his] state 

sentence” on July 1, 1987. App. at 83. The Notice of Action 

also stated that, in circumstances like Howard’s—given the 

severity of his parole violations—the “[r]eparole guidelines 

indicate a customary range of 48-60 months to be served 

before re-release” and that “[a]fter review of all relevant 

factors and information presented, a decision outside the 

guidelines . . . is not found warranted.” Id. Those 

explanations of the Notice of Action’s practical consequences 

fortify our understanding of the meaning of the document as a 

whole. 

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Howard also received a parole certificate in August 1987, 

a month after his July 1987 reparole date. The parole 

certificate stated that Howard’s parole would extend through 

October 1, 2004. The date on the parole certificate 

presupposed that Howard’s state and federal sentences ran 

consecutively. Howard received that document but did not 

object to it for decades, despite the fact that, according to his 

current position, it misstated his parole termination date by 

several years. See App. at 677. 

Howard insists that, when a Notice is ambiguous on the 

point, the presumption should be that sentences run 

concurrently. Yet, when Howard had his parole revocation 

hearing in 1985, the Commission’s public guidelines and 

regulations, as well as decisions of the Supreme Court and 

numerous Federal Courts of Appeals, were clear and 

unanimous that the Commission’s policy was to run federal 

and state sentences consecutively unless otherwise specified. 

See, e.g., Moody, 429 U.S. at 85; Still v. U.S. Marshal, 780 

F.2d 848, 855 (10th Cir. 1985) (Logan, J., dissenting); U.S. 

Parole Comm’n, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Rules and Procedures 

Manual 119 (1984) (“1984 Manual”). The Commission’s 

policy has never wavered, and was its policy at the time of 

Howard’s revocation hearing and Notice of Action. 28 C.F.R. 

§ 2.47(d)(2) (1984).4

 Howard insists that he relied on the 

advice of his lawyer in concluding that his terms would run 

concurrently. Evid. Hearing Tr. May 11, 2011 a.m., at 15:12-

18. But even if Howard was confused, his confusion was not 

objectively reasonable in the circumstances of this case. Even 

accepting that the Notice of Action is somewhat unclear 

standing alone, there can be little doubt as to its meaning 

when it is read together with the other relevant facts and 

 

4

 The policy was renumbered from § 2.47(c) to § 2.47(d)(2) 

between 1976 and 1986, and now is codified at § 2.47(e)(2). 

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against the background of generally available and directly 

relevant legal sources. 

In sum, the actions of the Commission at the time 

Howard received his Notice of Action, along with the context 

and circumstances in which the Commission issued it, 

bolstered the Commission’s message that it never intended his 

federal and state sentences to run concurrently. Every 

document, memorandum, transcript, certificate, and notice of 

any kind issued by the Commission regarding Howard’s 

parole—save, arguably, Howard’s Notice of Action—made 

clear that Howard’s sentences ran consecutively. Howard 

stakes his case on an admittedly awkward phrase in his Notice 

of Action. Yet the Commission’s reading of the order’s text 

and its further explication of its determination in the 

remainder of the Notice combine to defeat his claim that the 

Commission ordered his sentences run concurrently. 

B. 

Howard raises several arguments centered on his 

contention that the Commission either did not execute his 

1982 parole violator warrant in 1987, or did not execute it 

properly. The magistrate judge concluded that “the 1982 

warrant was executed, and it was executed on July 21, 1987.” 

App. at 687. Howard claims that decision was erroneous. 

With respect to the propriety of the warrant’s execution, 

Howard argues that the Commission never executed the 1982 

warrant because he never received notice of its execution, and 

because federal agents never took him into physical 

custody—both of which, he argues, are necessary for a parole 

violator warrant to be executed. 

Howard also raises several procedural challenges to his 

habeas corpus hearing before the magistrate judge, all of 

which arise out of his dissatisfaction with the judge’s and his 

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own attorney’s treatment of his contentions regarding 

execution of his 1982 parole violator warrant. He claims that 

the magistrate judge abused her discretion and denied him due 

process of law because she did not allow him to call several 

witnesses he argues would have been able to help him to 

establish that the Commission never executed the 1982 

warrant. Howard further asserts that he received ineffective 

assistance of counsel at his evidentiary hearing because his 

attorney did not do enough to help him to procure those 

witnesses or to press his argument that the Commission did 

not execute the 1982 warrant. 

Those arguments fail together because they rest on the 

faulty premise that it is legally material whether Howard’s 

1982 parole violator warrant was ever executed. Neither the 

Due Process Clause nor any statute or regulation obligated the 

Commission to execute the 1982 warrant, see Moody, 429 

U.S. at 87; Donn v. Baer, 828 F.2d 487, 489 (8th Cir. 1987), 

and the Commission’s authorizing statute did not require it to 

execute the warrant in order to exert jurisdiction over 

Howard, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 4213(a), 4214(d); see also Heath v. 

U.S. Parole Comm’n, 788 F.2d 85, 91 (2d Cir. 1986). 

Howard has not identified nor can we discern a violation of 

any right Howard might have that would turn on the execution 

of his 1982 parole violator warrant. 

To understand why the nonexecution of the 1982 warrant 

was legally innocuous, it may be helpful to review the 

interplay between parole violator warrants and parole 

revocations. Such warrants are used by the Parole 

Commission to take parolees back into federal custody for 

alleged parole violations. When such a warrant is executed, 

federal law requires that the parolee receive a prompt parole 

revocation hearing to determine what consequences will flow 

from the parolee’s alleged violation. See Sutherland v. 

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18 

McCall, 709 F.2d 730, 732 (D.C. Cir. 1983). But the inverse 

is not the case. Even if there is a revocation hearing, there is 

no similar requirement that the outstanding parole violator 

warrant to which it relates ever be executed. As the Supreme 

Court explained in Moody, “execution of the [parole violator] 

warrant and custody under that warrant” are the “operative 

event[s] triggering any loss of liberty attendant upon parole 

revocation.” 429 U.S. at 87. Thus, “the mere issuance of a 

parole violator warrant works no present deprivation of 

protected liberty sufficient to invoke due process protection.” 

Id. at 85. The “Commission . . . has no constitutional duty to 

provide [a parolee] an adversary parole hearing until he is 

taken into custody as a parole violator by execution of the 

warrant.” Id. at 89. Howard was already in custody in 

Virginia. 

This asymmetry explains why Howard received a parole 

revocation hearing in this case even though the Commission 

may never have executed the parole violator warrant to which 

it was ostensibly linked. Moody established that the 

Commission may delay executing a parole violator warrant—

and therefore holding a parole revocation hearing—until the 

“expiration of [a] parolee’s intervening sentence.” Id. at 89. 

The dissenters in Moody were critical of the Court’s 

conclusion that the Commission had “no obligation to go 

forward with the revocation hearing until after the parolee has 

completed the service of his sentence for [a] second offense” 

and could therefore “wait as long as 10 or 20 years” before 

holding a hearing. 429 U.S. at 91 (Stevens, J., dissenting). 

Perhaps mindful of that perceived unfairness, the Commission 

has made it a practice to act earlier to hold revocation 

hearings on parole violations that result in an independent 

term of imprisonment. See Paroling, Recommitting, and 

Supervising Federal Prisoners, 46 Fed. Reg. 35,635, 35,635 

(July 10, 1981) (recognizing 1980 change in policy to 

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19 

“provid[e] revocation hearing more promptly for persons 

incarcerated with new sentences”). At the time of Howard’s 

incarceration, the Commission’s regulations advised that such 

hearings were to be held within 24 months of an individual’s 

incarceration, and that the underlying warrant was to be let to 

“stand as a detainer.” Id. at 35,637 (announcing extensions to, 

inter alia, 28 C.F.R. § 2.47(b)(1)(i)). But once a preexecution parole revocation hearing has been held, as it was 

in Howard’s case in 1985, there is no requirement that the 

underlying parole violator warrant be executed if it is not 

needed for the purpose of arrest or detainer. For this reason, 

the policy of the Commission at the time of Howard’s 

incarceration in Virginia in the 1980s, as today, is to withdraw 

parole violator warrants that are no longer needed, not to 

execute them. See 1984 Manual at 123; accord U.S. Parole 

Comm’n, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Rules and Procedures Manual 

132 (2010) (“2010 Manual”).

In Howard’s case, the Commission’s 1985 parole 

revocation hearing was of this pre-execution type. It 

pertained to the same alleged parole violations that led to the 

issuance of his 1982 parole violator warrant. Once the 

Commission held the hearing, whether the Commission 

executed the parole violator warrant or not no longer 

mattered, so long as its actions conformed to its decision in 

Howard’s parole revocation hearing. The Commission let 

Howard’s parole violator warrant stand as a detainer between 

1982 and 1987 because the Commission concluded at his 

parole revocation hearing that Howard should serve at least 

five years in prison for his parole violations—and if Virginia 

released him sooner, for whatever reason, the Commission 

wanted to ensure it would be notified so it could incarcerate 

him at a federal institution to complete the remainder of his 

60 months in prison. But once 60 months passed, the 

Commission no longer sought to return Howard to federal 

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20 

prison, so execution of the warrant was unnecessary. As of 

July 21, 1987, in the eyes of the Commission, Howard was 

once again on federal parole whether his warrant was 

executed or not. 

The premise of the balance of Howard’s claims relating 

to the 1982 parole violator warrant is that, if he could prove 

the warrant was not executed or executed improperly, he 

would be entitled to habeas corpus relief; the error of that 

premise is fatal to the related claims. The magistrate judge 

permissibly exercised her lawful discretion in determining 

that Howard’s proffered witnesses were irrelevant because 

their testimony was directed at an extraneous issue. Howard’s 

counsel likewise did not render ineffective assistance. 

Whether Howard’s attorney had succeeded in locating the 

witnesses or pressing Howard’s warrant-execution 

contentions more forcefully, it would not have supported his 

habeas petition. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 

691 (1984) (“An error by counsel, even if professionally 

unreasonable, does not warrant setting aside the judgment of a 

criminal proceeding if the error had no effect on the 

judgment.”). 

C. 

The Commission did not prejudicially delay Howard’s 

2004 parole revocation hearing. Federal law requires that a 

revocation hearing be held 90 days after execution of a parole 

violator warrant. 18 U.S.C. § 4214(c). The Commission’s 

failure to meet the statutory deadline, however, is not grounds 

for habeas corpus relief unless the delay is so prejudicial to 

the parolee that it violates his due process rights. Sutherland, 

709 F.2d at 732; see Morrissey, 408 U.S. at 488-89. In this 

Circuit, relief for such a due process violation is granted only 

“where a petitioner establishes that the Commission’s delay in 

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21 

holding a revocation hearing was both unreasonable and 

prejudicial.” Sutherland, 709 F.2d at 732. 

Howard argues that the Commission delayed his 2004 

parole revocation hearing by several years because it executed 

his 1998 parole violator warrant (or “an invalid duplicate”) in 

either 2000 or 2002. In Howard’s view, any such execution 

started the parole-revocation hearing clock. Howard argues 

that the revocation hearing was thus unlawfully delayed by 

two to four years, to his material prejudice. Had his 

revocation hearing been promptly convened, Howard argues, 

he would have had the opportunity to call additional witnesses 

and introduce more mitigating evidence at that hearing, and 

therefore the Commission would have been far less likely 

retroactively to revoke all of his credit for time spent on 

parole between 1987 and 2004. 

The magistrate judge found that the Commission 

executed his 1998 parole revocation warrant in 2004, and that 

it held his parole revocation hearing 127 days later—37 days 

beyond the statutory deadline. In particular, the magistrate 

judge determined that the Commission issued a parole 

violator warrant in 1998, and then held it in abeyance so that 

Howard could participate in a non-prison-based drug 

treatment program. App. at 668. The Commission issued a 

similar, but not identical, parole violator warrant in 2000 that 

it withdrew in 2001 as mistaken and duplicative. Id. at 668-

69. In 2002, the Commission supplemented the 1998 warrant 

to reflect crimes Howard committed in 2001 and 2002 and 

then lodged the warrant as a detainer. Id. at 669-70. The 

Commission executed the 1998 warrant in 2004. Id. at 670. 

In support of his contention that the Commission 

executed his 1998 warrant in 2000 or 2002, such that his 2004 

revocation hearing was unreasonably delayed by several 

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years, Howard claims that the magistrate judge’s Report and 

Recommendation failed affirmatively to reject his proffered 

evidence of multiple executions of the same warrant, and 

thereby left those factual questions open and unresolved. But 

the magistrate judge heard and considered Howard’s 

arguments and evidence on that issue. Her opinion quotes, 

summarizes, and presents Howard’s testimony explaining his 

contention that the Commission executed his 1998 parole 

violator warrant in either 2000 or 2002. App. at 675 

(“Petitioner testified that in February or March, 2001, he 

‘[was] released on bond . . . for the local Virginia 

charge[] . . . , [and] from the Federal parole warrant[.]’” 

(alterations in original)); id. at 676 (“Petitioner testified that 

he was arrested in October, 2002 in Arlington County ‘for a 

Federal parole violator warrant[,]’ and that the United States 

Marshals took him to the jail in Alexandria, then returned him 

to Arlington County.” (alterations in original)); see also id. at 

676-78 (describing government’s cross-examination focused 

on showing that neither warrant execution happened). The 

magistrate judge did not fail to address Howard’s evidence, 

but considered it and did not credit it.5

 

Howard cannot relitigate the magistrate judge’s factual 

conclusions regarding his warrant issuances and executions 

unless he can show clear error. On questions regarding 

“specific factual determinations about what happened” and 

 

5

 The magistrate judge devoted several paragraphs of the Report 

and Recommendation to explaining why the Commission’s delay in 

executing the 1998 warrant until 2004 did not prejudice Howard. 

App. at 689-91. He does not appeal on that ground. That discussion 

is relevant here, however, because its factual premise is that the 

Commission executed the 1998 warrant in 2004. In failing to find 

that an earlier warrant execution occurred, the magistrate judge’s 

opinion rejected Howard’s arguments that the Commission 

executed the 1998 warrant in either 2000 or 2002. 

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judgments about “whether evidence is sufficiently reliable to 

credit,” we may reverse the judgment below only if it is 

clearly erroneous. Obaydullah v. Obama, 688 F.3d 784, 792 

(D.C. Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Howard 

identifies evidence pointing both ways on the question 

whether the Commission executed the 1998 warrant in 2000 

or 2002, see, e.g., Appellant Br. at 40-46, but his analysis of 

the record does not leave this Court with a “definite and firm 

conviction that a mistake has been committed,” United States 

v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395 (1948). 

Howard’s habeas claim turns on establishing that the 

Commission’s delay of his parole revocation hearing was both 

unreasonable and prejudicial. He asserted a lengthy delay of 

two to four years and his only claim of prejudice relates to 

that longer period. The magistrate judge’s finding that the 

Commission executed the warrant in 2004 eliminates 

Howard’s claim that the Commission’s delay prejudiced him. 

The only delay at issue on these facts is that his hearing was 

not held until 127 days after his warrant execution—37 days 

beyond the 90-day statutory deadline. Howard does not 

contend that that delay during 2004 was unreasonable or 

prejudicial; indeed, he disclaims any such prejudice. 

Appellant Reply Br. at 15. 

Because the Commission validly executed Howard’s 

warrant in 2004, and he has not attempted to show that the 

delay thereafter in holding his parole revocation hearing was 

unreasonable or prejudicial, we hold that he cannot obtain 

habeas relief on that ground. 

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the district 

court is affirmed. 

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