Opinion ID: 393889
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Credit for Pretrial Custody

Text: 10 Doyle places great emphasis on a line of Fifth Circuit cases beginning with Davis v. Attorney General, 425 F.2d 238 (5th Cir. 1970). The Davis court held that when an arrestee's release on bail is precluded because of a federal detainer, and he is ultimately sentenced to prison on the offense underlying the detainer, he is entitled to receive credit on the detainer-related sentence for the time spent in pretrial custody. 4 Doyle would have this court carry Davis and its progeny one step further and hold that such credit must be granted without regard to whether the credit was also applied to the arrest-related sentence. Such a rule would disregard the practical realities of the case before us. We therefore decline to adopt it. 11 As a practical matter, Doyle spent four months in pretrial custody for two reasons: because he was accused of committing a crime, and because he was accused of violating his parole. It seems obvious and not particularly unusual that he was in pretrial custody in connection with both the violator term and the 1978 sentence. Therefore, under section 3568, he is entitled to receive credit for the pretrial custody. That is not to say that he is entitled to double credit. It simply means that he is entitled to have the total amount of time he must spend in prison under his two sentences reduced by the amount of time he spent in pretrial custody. 12 There is no dispute that Doyle received credit on his 1978 sentence for the full period he spent in pretrial custody. Because the parole violator term was ordered to run consecutively to the 1978 sentence, the effect of applying the credit to the 1978 sentence was to reduce the total amount of time Doyle must actually spend in prison by four months. That, and no more, is what Doyle is due under section 3568. 5 13