Source: http://openjurist.org/442/f3d/1088/fults-v-sanders-fci-fc
Timestamp: 2015-08-28 15:19:24
Document Index: 182688164

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3621', '§ 152', '§ 3621', '§ 3624', '§ 570', '§ 3621']

442 F3d 1088 Fults v. Sanders Fci-Fc | OpenJurist
442 F. 3d 1088 - Fults v. Sanders Fci-Fc Home
442 F3d 1088 Fults v. Sanders Fci-Fc 442 F.3d 1088
Dennis FULTS, Plaintiff-Appellee,v.Linda SANDERS, Warden, FCI-FC, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 05-3490.
Submitted: December 15, 2005.
Fletcher Jackson, Little Rock, Arkansas, for appellant Asst. U.S. Attorney.
Jenniffer Horan, Little Rock, Arkansas, for appellee Federal Public Defender.
Before RILEY, LAY, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) passed a regulation that limits the portion of an inmate's sentence that can be served in a Community Corrections Center (CCC), commonly known as a halfway house. Dennis Fults, an inmate who wished to be transferred to a CCC, petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus arguing that this regulation is invalid. The district court1 struck down the regulation on the basis that it conflicts with 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b), and the BOP appealed. We affirm.
On January 21, 2005, Fults was sentenced to an eighteen-month term of incarceration for concealment of assets in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 152. According to a BOP regulation put into place on February 14, 2005, Fults would have become eligible for pre-release placement in a CCC on January 6, 2006, if he earned all possible credits for good conduct.2 This regulation limits Fults' time in a CCC to ten percent of his sentence-forty-seven days. Fults sought to be transferred to a CCC for 180 days. Fults filed suit contending that the regulation misconstrues the discretion granted to the BOP by § 3621(b) and violates the Ex Post Facto Clause. Solely on the basis of the former argument, the district court ordered the BOP to consider in good faith whether to transfer Fults to a CCC to serve the final 180 days of his sentence.
Prior to December 2002, the BOP allowed an inmate to be placed in a CCC for up to six months, regardless of the total length of the inmate's sentence. On December 13, 2002, the Office of Legal Counsel for the Department of Justice issued a memorandum stating that this practice was inconsistent with § 3624(c) which, in its opinion, limited an inmate's placement in a CCC to the lesser of six months or ten percent of the inmate's sentence. Section 3624(c) states:
The Bureau of Prisons shall, to the extent practicable, assure that a prisoner serving a term of imprisonment spends a reasonable part, not to exceed six months, of the last 10 per centum of the term to be served under conditions that will afford the prisoner a reasonable opportunity to adjust to and prepare for the prisoner's re-entry into the community. The authority provided by this subsection may be used to place a prisoner in home confinement. The United States Probation System shall, to the extent practicable, offer assistance to a prisoner during such pre-release custody.
The BOP adopted the Office of Legal Counsel's interpretation of this statute, but we later rejected that interpretation and invalidated the December 2002 policy in Elwood v. Jeter, 386 F.3d 842 (8th Cir. 2004). We stated that the BOP has the discretion to transfer an inmate to a CCC at any time, but only the duty to consider a transfer to a CCC in the last six months of a sentence. Id. at 845-47.
In February 2005, in response to Elwood and a similar decision from the First Circuit, Goldings v. Winn, 383 F.3d 17 (1st Cir.2004), the BOP created new regulations governing the placement of inmates in CCCs. These regulations state that the BOP was engaging in a "categorical exercise of discretion" and choosing to "designate inmates to [CCC] confinement only. . . during the last ten percent of the prison sentence being served, not to exceed six months." 28 C.F.R. § 570.20-21. The BOP contends that this exercise of discretion is permissible under § 3621(b) which states:
The Bureau shall designate the place of the prisoner's imprisonment. The Bureau may designate any available penal or correctional facility that meets minimum standards of health and habitability established by the Bureau, whether maintained by the Federal Government or otherwise and whether within or without the judicial district in which the person was convicted, that the Bureau determines to be appropriate and suitable, considering—