Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-19-01238/USCOURTS-ca10-19-01238-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Bureau of Prisons
Appellee
Richard Lee Goodface
Appellant
U.S. Attorney General
Appellee
U.S. Marshals
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

RICHARD LEE GOODFACE, a/k/a 

Richard L. Rieger, 

 Petitioner - Appellant, 

v. 

U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL; BUREAU 

OF PRISONS; U.S. MARSHALS, 

 Respondents - Appellees.

No. 19-1238 

(D.C. No. 1:18-CV-01884-RBJ) 

(D. Colo.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before LUCERO, BALDOCK, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________ 

Richard Goodface appeals the district court’s denial of his application for a 

writ of habeas corpus. Goodface is serving two concurrent sentences: a 28-month 

federal term of imprisonment for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and 

the remainder of a five-year state parole revocation sentence. He filed a pro se 

habeas application pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241, seeking an award of presentence 

 * After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral 

argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, 

except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It 

may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

February 10, 2020

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court

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2 

confinement credit against his federal sentence. After appointing counsel and 

receiving briefing from the parties, the district court denied his application. 

Goodface timely appealed. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we 

affirm.

I 

Goodface was convicted in Colorado state court of attempted first-degree 

murder and sentenced to a twenty-year prison term, to be followed by a mandatory 

five-year term of parole. On March 22, 2016, he was released from prison and began 

serving his state parole term. On June 24, 2016, he was arrested for violating his 

parole conditions. He was held in county jail and charged with state offenses. On 

August 24, 2016, he was indicted on a federal charge of possession of a firearm by a 

prohibited person. The state offenses, which were based on the same conduct as the 

federal charge, were later dismissed. 

On August 30, 2016, Goodface was transferred to the custody of the United 

States Marshals Service (“USMS”) pursuant to a federal writ of habeas corpus ad 

prosequendum. He remained in the physical custody of USMS from August 30, 2016 

to February 21, 2018. 

Goodface pled guilty in federal court to the firearms charge. On February 22, 

2018, he was sentenced to a 28-month federal term of imprisonment and began 

serving his federal sentence that day. His judgment and sentence recommended that 

he be given credit for time served. Although the judgment was silent concerning 

whether the federal sentence was to be served concurrently or consecutively to the 

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3 

remaining state sentence, the federal sentencing judge later retroactively designated 

the sentence to run concurrently with his state sentence.

On March 28, 2018, the Colorado State Board of Parole revoked Goodface’s 

state parole sentence. The Colorado Department of Corrections (“CDOC”) granted 

him credit against his parole sentence for the entire period he was “on the streets” 

from March 22, 2016 (when he was released from prison) to March 28, 2018 (when 

his parole was revoked). But Goodface also sought presentence confinement credit 

against his federal sentence for the time period when he was in USMS custody prior 

to receiving his federal sentence, from August 30, 2016 to February 21, 2018. After 

the federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) denied him that requested credit, he filed this 

petition.1

II

In computing a federal sentence, we follow a two-step process: we first

determine the commencement date of the federal sentence, then address whether the 

defendant can receive credit for time spent in custody prior to the commencement of 

that sentence. Binford v. United States, 436 F.3d 1252, 1254 (10th Cir. 2006). The

district court concluded the BOP correctly determined that Goodface began serving 

his federal sentence on February 22, 2018. It denied his habeas application because it 

concluded he had already received credit on his state sentence for the entire period 

 1

 A federal district court lacks authority to grant credits against federal 

sentences. Such authority lies exclusively with the BOP, the decisions of which are 

subject to administrative and judicial review. See United States v. Wilson, 503 U.S. 

329, 335 (1992). 

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from June 24, 2016 to February 22, 2018 and was thus ineligible for credit against his 

federal sentence. 

 This appeal presents a pure legal issue of statutory interpretation, which we 

review de novo. See Wright v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 451 F.3d 1231, 1233 (10th 

Cir. 2006). “Our task is to interpret the words of the statute in light of the purposes 

Congress sought to serve.” Id. at 1234 (quotation omitted). Our inquiry begins with 

the statutory language, and we read its words “in their context and with a view to 

their place in the overall statutory scheme.” Id. (quotation omitted). 

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b), a defendant is entitled to “credit toward the 

service of a term of imprisonment for any time he has spent in official detention prior 

to the date the sentence commences,” but only if that time “has not been credited 

against another sentence.” In enacting § 3585(b), “Congress made clear that a 

defendant could not receive a double credit for his detention time.” Wilson, 503 U.S. 

at 337. 

Goodface argues the credit he received against his Colorado sentence was for 

time Colorado considered him to be “on the streets,” which he would have received 

for being on parole regardless of whether he served that time in BOP custody.

2

 The 

credit the CDOC granted him, he contends, was therefore not due to his being in 

official detention and should not count as a credit against his state sentence for 

purposes of § 3585(b). He argues the word “credited” used in § 3585(b), taken in 

 2

 Respondents do not contest this interpretation of Colorado law.

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context, unambiguously refers to time credited against another sentence because of

official detention, and only for that reason. Alternatively, if § 3585(b) is ambiguous, 

Goodface contends we should look to the purpose of the provision, which is to ensure 

that defendants do not receive duplicative credit due to time spent in official 

detention. 

We agree with the district court that Goodface is not entitled to further credit 

against his federal sentence. He has already received credit toward his state sentence

for time spent in official detention from August 30, 2016 to February 21, 2018, prior 

to the commencement of his federal sentence on February 22, 2018. The fact that 

Colorado would have afforded him the same credit for serving a term of parole in the 

community is irrelevant. The time Goodface spent in official detention was credited 

against his state sentence. That is all the statute’s plain language requires. 

Goodface also notes that § 3585(b) makes no reference to credit granted 

toward a term of parole. But under Colorado law, “the term ‘sentence’ incorporates 

both the incarceration component and the mandatory parole component of an 

offender’s penalty.” People v. Norton, 63 P.3d 339, 344 (Colo. 2003). Goodface 

does not contest this principle of Colorado law.

Although § 3585(b) does refer to credit for time spent in official detention, 

nothing in the statute requires the BOP to ignore a state’s grant of credit against a 

parole sentence. The statute does not require a court to inquire into why the credit 

was given, or under what other circumstances such credit might have been given. 

This interpretation is consistent with the statutory purpose of the exclusion, which is 

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to prevent a defendant from receiving “a double credit for his detention time.” 

Wilson, 503 U.S. at 337. In this case, the BOP did just that: consistent with 

§ 3585(b), it denied Goodface credit against his federal sentence for the time he spent 

in USMS custody because Colorado had already credited that time against his state 

parole sentence.

III

AFFIRMED. Goodface’s motion to expedite this appeal is GRANTED. 

Entered for the Court 

Carlos F. Lucero 

Circuit Judge 

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