UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

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ARTURO SOLIS, 

 Petitioner - Appellant, 

v. 

M. A. STANCIL, 

 Respondent - Appellee. 

No. 20-1185 

(D.C. No. 1:18-CV-02842-DDD) 

(D. Colo.) 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

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Before HOLMES, BACHARACH, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges. 

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This appeal stems from the administration of Mr. Arturo Solis’s 

convictions and sentences in state and federal courts. Mr. Solis filed a 

federal habeas petition, claiming that authorities hadn’t properly credited 

time on his federal sentence. The district court denied habeas relief, and 

we affirm. 

* This order and judgment does not constitute binding precedent except 

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

But the order and judgment may be cited for its persuasive value if 

otherwise appropriate. Fed. R. App. P. 32.1(a); 10th Cir. R. 32.1(A). 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

May 25, 2021

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court
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I. Standard of Review

 This Court conducts de novo review of the denial of habeas relief. 

See Garza v. Davis, 596 F.3d 1198, 1203 (10th Cir. 2010). 

II. Sentence Computation

 While serving his state sentence, Mr. Solis was charged with a 

federal offense. Doc. 55-1 at ¶ 7. The new federal charge led to his arrest 

and temporary transfer to federal custody. This transfer required Mr. Solis 

to spend roughly seven months in federal prison, where he waited for his 

federal trial to start. Doc. 55-1 at ¶¶ 7, 13. Mr. Solis claims that his federal 

sentence should have included at least some of the time in this sevenmonth period. Appellant’s Opening Brief at 2–3. We disagree. 

The federal sentence did not start when Mr. Solis entered federal 

custody. At that point, he had not been convicted in federal court, so he 

could not have been serving a federal sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a); 

see United States v. Flores, 616 F.2d 840, 841 (5th Cir. 1980). 

The seven-month period ended with Mr. Solis’s federal sentencing. 

In determining the sentence, the federal district court had to decide 

whether the federal sentence would run concurrently with or consecutively 

to the state sentence. The court decided to run the federal sentence 

consecutively to the state sentence. So the court ordered that Mr. Solis 

wouldn’t start serving his federal sentence until he had finished serving his 

state sentence. Doc. 55-1 at ¶ 14. Given this order, Mr. Solis could not 
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start serving his federal sentence until he finished serving his state 

sentence. So he didn’t start serving his federal sentence until after the 

seven-month period had expired.

 Mr. Solis claims that both the district court and prison authorities 

erred because the federal sentence should have run concurrently with the 

state sentence. But Mr. Solis waived these claims by omitting them in his 

habeas petition. Owens v. Trammell, 792 F.3d 1234, 1246 (10th Cir. 2015). 

Even in the absence of waiver, however, these claims would fail for 

two reasons. First, the sentencing court had discretion to run the sentences 

consecutively. See 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a). Second, when a federal court has 

ordered sentences to run consecutively, prison authorities cannot 

unilaterally change the sentence. United States v. Miller, 594 F.3d 1240, 

1242 (10th Cir. 2010). For both reasons, we would have rejected Mr. 

Solis’s two claims even if he had not waived them. 

 Affirmed. 

Entered for the Court 

Robert E. Bacharach 

Circuit Judge