Opinion ID: 613621
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Good Time Calculation

Text: Ruiz argues that the court erred by rejecting a variance to account for what he maintains is a difference in the way the Sentencing Commission and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) calculate good-time credits. The Guidelines, he argues, overcompensate for credits that will never be earned, and therefore his sentence of imprisonment should have been reduced from the low end of the Guidelines range by an additional one month (rounded up from 19 days). This argument is an attempt to reframe the arguments raised by the petitioners in Barber v. Thomas, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2499, 2502, 177 L.Ed.2d 1 (2010), who challenged the BOP's methodology for calculating good-time credits under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1). § 3624(b)(1) permits an award of up to 54 days of good-time credit per year of imprisonment. The BOP calculates such credits on the basis of time served, rather than time imposed. Under the BOP's calculations, a well-behaved prisoner serving a ten-year term may receive 470 days of good-time credit. Id. at 2503. At the end of each year, the BOP subtracts 54 days from the sentence. Id. at 2502. A consistently well-behaved prisoner serving a ten-year term, however, will get out before the end of that sentence. Id. at 2513 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Thus, the BOP's methodology in calculating credit precludes prisoners from earning credit they would otherwise have earned had they not been released early for good behavior. Id. at 2505. The Barber petitioners argued that they should instead be able to earn up to 540 days (54 days per year) of credit while serving a ten-year sentence, regardless of when they are released. Id. at 2503. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, holding that the BOP's method of calculation reflected the most natural reading of the statute. Id. at 2504. In support, the Barber petitioners cited both a statement the Sentencing Commission made in 1987 and a reference in later editions of the Guidelines to a potential credit of `approximately fifteen percent for good behavior,' id. at 2508, which, they argued, suggested that the Commission set its Guideline ranges with the expectation that well-behaved prisoners would receive good time credit of up to 15% of the sentence imposed, not 15% of the time actually served. [10] Id. Ruiz, relying on exactly the same evidence, contends that it actually demonstrates that all Guidelines sentences are too longby 19 days in his case. Regardless of whether Ruiz is correct that § 3553's parsimony principle would mandate a variance due to the time-imposed and time-served assumptions by the Commission and the BOP, the Supreme Court has already concluded that the evidence is inconclusive as to whether the BOP and the Commission acted on different assumptions: [W]e can find no indication that the Commission, in writing its Supplementary Report or in the Guidelines themselves, considered or referred to the particular question here before us, that is whether good time credit is to be based on time served or the sentence imposed. The Guidelines Manual itself, a more authoritative account of the Commission's interpretive views than the Supplementary Report, says nothing directly on that subject. . . . Because the Commission has expressed no view on the question before us, we need not decide whether it would be entitled to deference had it done so. If it turns out that the calculation of good time credit based on prison time served rather than the sentence imposed produces results that are more severe than the Commission finds appropriate, the Commission remains free to adjust sentencing levels accordingly. Id. at 2508. Ruiz concedes that the Supreme Court did not determine whether the Sentencing Commission and the BOP use different credit systems. More than that, however, the Supreme Court actually concluded that the very evidence Ruiz now cites did not even address whether the Commission attempted to compensate for good-time credits on the basis of whether they were calculated as a percentage of the time sentenced or time served. Accordingly, we find that Ruiz's sentence is not substantively unreasonable on this ground.