1 

United States District Court 

for the 

Southern District of Florida 

Lee Michael Harrison, Petitioner

v. 

Federal Bureau of Prisons, 

Respondent.

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Civil Action No. 22-14312-Scola 

Order 

Before the Court is Petitioner Lee Michael Harrison’s Petition for Writ of 

Habeas Corpus Under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (ECF No. 1) (“Petition”). The Court has 

considered Harrison’s Petition, the government’s response (ECF No. 7) 

(“Response”), the entire record, and is otherwise fully advised. For the reasons 

explained below, the Petition is denied. 

Background 

Harrison argues that he is owed First Step Act (“FSA”) earned time 

credits that should be applied to shorten his term of supervised release. (See 

generally Petition). Specifically, he contends that he lost 469 days of earned 

time credits without due process. (See id.). Respondent disagrees, but first 

asserts that Harrison is suing the wrong party—U.S. Probation rather than the 

Bureau of Prisons—and that he also failed to exhaust administrative remedies. 

See Response at 1. 

Exhaustion 

Prior to initiating a proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a petitioner must 

exhaust administrative remedies. See Santiago-Lugo v. Warden, 785 F.3d 467, 

475 (11th Cir. 2015). The exhaustion requirement is not jurisdictional, so a 

district court “may skip over the exhaustion issue if it is easier to deny . . . the 

petition on the merits without reaching the exhaustion question.” Blevins v. FCI 

Hazelton Warden, 819 F. App’x 853, 859 (11th Cir. 2020). 

The parties dispute the steps that must be taken to exhaust 

administrative remedies. It is easier to resolve the case on the merits. The 

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Court will therefore “skip over the exhaustion issue” and proceed to the merits. 

Blevins, 819 F. App’x at 859. 

Grounds One and Two 

In Ground One, Harrison argues that his due process rights under 18 

U.S.C. § 3632(e)(2) were denied by the revocation of at least 469 days of First 

Step Act Earned Time Credits. (See Petition at 5). In Ground Two, he asserts 

that “BOP violated the mandatory language of 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(C) of the 

First Step Act.” (Id. at 8). Both grounds can be addressed together. The 

prisoner release statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3624 in pertinent part, states: 

(3) Supervised release.--If the sentencing court included as a part of the 

 prisoner's sentence a requirement that the prisoner be placed on a term 

 of supervised release after imprisonment pursuant to section 3583, the 

 Director of the Bureau of Prisons may transfer the prisoner to begin 

 any such term of supervised release at an earlier date, not to 

 exceed 12 months, based on the application of time credits 

 under section 3632. 

Id. (emphasis added). Based on the plain text of the statute, FSA credits cannot 

be used to shorten a term of supervised release. Rather, the credits can only be 

used to allow early transfer to supervised release. 

In his Petition, Harrison relies primarily on Dyer v. Fulgam, a district 

court opinion from the Eastern District of Tennessee where the district judge 

applied the unused First Step Act time credits toward petitioner's term of 

supervised release. 2022 WL 1598249 (2022). The Court will not follow Dyer v. 

Fulgam.1 That opinion is non-binding on this Court and the decision is under 

appeal. See Dyer v. Fulgam, Case No. 21-299-CV-Collier (ECF Nos. 18, 19). 

Moving to binding caselaw, the Supreme Court has held that the length 

of a term of supervised release cannot be reduced “by reason of excess time 

1 Other district courts have taken the same approach. See Pillow v. Bureau of Prisons, 2022 WL 

13892877, at *7 (E.D. Ark. Oct. 21, 2022) (“The Court will not follow Dyer v. Fulgam and will 

not order his additional credits be applied to his two years of supervised release. Once 

[Petitioner] begins serving his supervised release, he is no longer in BOP custody, and the 

Court can no longer grant relief.”); Zimmer v. Marske, 2022 WL 4016623 (W.D. Wis. Sept. 2, 

2022) (finding that court cannot use withheld FSA credits to reduce term of supervised release 

retroactively).

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served in prison.” United States v. Johnson, 529 U.S. 53, 60 (2000). This is 

because “[s]upervised release fulfills rehabilitative ends distinct from those 

served by incarceration.” Id. at 59; see also Goldblatt v. Ortiz, 2022 WL 

1639007, at *2 (D.N.J. May 24, 2022) (applying Johnson to the § 2241 context 

and finding that “the supervised release statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3624, does not 

permit a court to credit a supervised release term with a period of excess prison 

time.”). As in Johnson, the prisoner release statute in the present case, “by its 

own necessary operation, does not reduce the length of a supervised release 

term by reason of excess time served in prison.” Johnson, 529 U.S. at 60. 

While this Court is unable to order relief, the sentencing court may, as it 

sees fit, modify an individual's conditions of supervised release under 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3583(e)(2). Furthermore, the court may terminate an individual's supervised 

release obligations “at any time after the expiration of one year ... if it is 

satisfied that such action is warranted by the conduct of the defendant 

released and the interest of justice.” Id. § 3583(e)(1); see also Shorter v. Warden, 

803 F. App'x 332, 334–35 (11th Cir. 2020); citing Pope v. Perdue, 889 F.3d 410, 

414–15 (7th Cir. 2018) (The fact that a petitioner “spent too much time in 

prison ... would carry ‘great weight’ in a § 3583(e) motion to reduce [the 

petitioner’s] term,” even though it would not “automatically entitle him to 

less supervised release.”). 

Conclusion 

Accordingly, it is ordered and adjudged that the Petition (ECF No. 1) is 

denied. The Clerk is directed to close the case. 

Done and ordered, in chambers, in Miami, Florida, on November 21, 

2022. 

 ________________________________ 

 Robert N. Scola, Jr. 

 United States District Judge 

Case 2:22-cv-14312-RNS Document 8 Entered on FLSD Docket 11/21/2022 Page 3 of 4
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Copies, via U.S. Mail, to 

Lee Michael Harrison 

72144−066

Inmate Mail/Parcels 

3816 Fetterbush Ct 

Port Saint Lucie, FL 34952 

PRO SE 

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