ALD-169 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 17-1045

___________

LEONIDAS R. FIELDS,

Appellant

v.

WARDEN ALLENWOOD USP

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil No. 3:15-cv-00516)

District Judge: Honorable Richard P. Conaboy

____________________________________

Submitted for Possible Summary Action

Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6

March 23, 2017

Before: McKEE, JORDAN and RESTREPO, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: April 4, 2017)

_________

OPINION*

_________

PER CURIAM

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.
2

Leonidas Fields, a federal prisoner, appeals from the District Court’s order 

dismissing his habeas corpus petition filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. For the reasons 

below, we will summarily affirm.

I.

In 1975, Fields received a life sentence following his conviction for the murder of 

a federal corrections officer.1 In 2015, Fields filed the habeas petition at issue in this 

appeal. In the petition, he sought an end to hourly security checks, the benefit of 

compassionate release, and release on parole. The District Court dismissed the petition.

First, the District Court determined that Fields must pursue his claims about the 

security checks in a civil rights action, not a habeas petition. Second, the District Court 

concluded that it did not have jurisdiction to consider Fields’s request for compassionate 

release. Finally, the District Court determined that the U.S. Parole Commission did not 

err in its denial of parole. With regard to the last finding, the District Court determined 

that even if the parole statute applied to Fields’s case, the Parole Commission’s reliance 

on Fields’s slaying of a corrections officer was not an abuse of discretion. Fields 

appeals.2

 

1 At the time of the homicide, Fields was serving a sentence for a federal bank robbery 

case.

2 He also requests that we appoint counsel to represent him on appeal.
3

II.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we exercise plenary 

review over the District Court’s legal conclusions. See Cradle v. United States ex rel. 

Miner, 290 F.3d 536, 538 (3d Cir. 2002) (per curiam). We may summarily affirm if there 

is no substantial question presented by the appeal. See 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4; 3d Cir. I.O.P. 

10.6.

III.

The District Court properly determined that § 2241 is not the proper vehicle for 

Fields to challenge the security checks. For such a claim to be cognizable under § 2241, 

the checks would have to “concern the execution of [Fields’s] sentence,” which requires 

that the Federal Bureau of Prison’s (“BOP”) “conduct was somehow inconsistent with a 

command or recommendation in the sentencing judgment,” or that the checks

“necessarily result[ed] in a change to the duration of his sentence.” Cardona v. Bledsoe, 

681 F.3d 533, 537 (3d Cir. 2012); see also Leamer v. Fauver, 288 F.3d 532, 542-44 (3d 

Cir. 2002) (holding that a civil rights action is appropriate to challenge conditions of 

confinement when a finding in plaintiff’s favor would not alter the sentence or undo the 

conviction). Fields’s petition alleged neither that the checks affected the duration of his 

sentence nor that the checks were inconsistent with the sentencing judgment. 

Accordingly, the District Court properly dismissed this claim.

The District Court also correctly decided Fields’s “compassionate release” claim. 

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), a term of imprisonment can be reduced if 
4

“extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction,” but only upon “motion 

of the Director of the Bureau of Prisons.” As the District Court indicated, courts have 

generally held that the BOP’s decision to file a motion under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) or its 

predecessor is not judicially reviewable. See, e.g., Fernandez v. United States, 941 F.2d 

1488, 1493 (11th Cir. 1991). The statute plainly vests the decision to pursue relief solely 

with the BOP.

Next, we address Fields’s claim that he has been improperly denied parole. 

Although the District Court is correct that review in such cases is limited, federal courts 

retain the ability to determine whether a rational basis exists for the denial of parole and 

whether the Commission followed the applicable regulations. See Furnari v. Warden, 

Allenwood Fed. Corr. Inst., 218 F.3d 250, 254 (3d Cir. 2000); see also Gambino v. 

Morris, 134 F.3d 156, 160 (3d Cir. 1998).

Fields argues that he has been unlawfully denied mandatory parole. We disagree. 

Under 18 U.S.C. § 4206(d) (repealed), a federal prisoner will be released on mandatory 

parole unless the Parole Commission “determines that he has seriously or frequently 

violated institution rules and regulations or that there is a reasonable probability that he 

will commit any Federal, State, or local crime.” For an inmate serving a life sentence or 

greater than 45 years, the mandatory parole date comes after serving two-thirds of his 

sentence or 30 years, whichever is earlier. Id. Assuming without deciding that this 

provision, which was enacted after Fields’s conviction, applies to his case, the District 

Court did not err in its review of the Parole Commission’s denial of parole. As the 
5

District Court determined, the Commission’s reliance on Fields’s prison homicide did not 

constitute an abuse of discretion because such an offense qualifies as a serious violation 

of institution rules.

3

 Finally, despite Fields’s argument to the contrary, there is no 

evidence in the record that the District Judge reached this conclusion because he was 

biased against Fields.

IV.

Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.4

 

3 Before this Court, Fields asserts that in an earlier proceeding the District Court told the 

BOP to release him expeditiously. Fields, however, misreads the District Court’s 2010 

opinion. The District Court simply urged the Parole Commission to consider Fields’s 

eligibility for parole promptly. That decision specifically noted that “[t]here may well be 

adequate reasons for denying Petitioner parole[.]”

4 Fields’s request for the appointment of counsel is denied.