Opinion ID: 220833
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Facts and Procedural History

Text: On August 11, 2000, Lopez was arrested in the Bronx, New York, for selling crack cocaine, and was charged by the State of New York with criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree. Lopez pled guilty to that charge in November 2000 and was sentenced to an indeterminate term of four and one-half to nine years imprisonment. In November 2004, after serving four years and three months in state custody, Lopez was transferred to federal custody pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum, and in April 2005, Lopez was indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 812, 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A). The only overt act specified in the federal indictment was Lopez's August 11, 2000, sale of crack cocaine  the same offense for which he had earlier been convicted in state court. Lopez pled guilty to the federal charge on September 27, 2007, and was sentenced on June 19, 2008; as of that date, Lopez was still serving his state sentence. The district court (Holwell, J. ) determined at sentencing that Lopez was eligible for a 94-month adjustment under U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(b) based on his presentence custody, since his prior state conviction qualified as relevant conduct with respect to his federal offense. (Because Lopez's presentence custody was credited to his state sentence, no § 3585(b) credit was available.) The court thus imposed a 132-month term of imprisonment to run concurrent with Lopez's state conviction, with a credit for time served in state and federal custody from [August] 11, 2000. The district court clarified in its written judgment that the term of imprisonment was 132 months, minus 94 months for time already served, which resulted in an actual term of 38-months imprisonment. After sentencing, Lopez was remanded to state custody to serve the remaining portion of his undischarged state sentence, which he completed on December 31, 2008. He then returned to federal custody to complete his federal sentence. In early 2009, Lopez discovered that the BOP had calculated his release date as March 22, 2011, based on its determination that he was eligible for GCT only as to the 38 months he served following his date of sentencing in district court. Lopez challenged this calculation in a letter submitted to the BOP, asserting that because the district court had sentenced him to 132-months imprisonment on his federal conviction, he should be eligible for GCT for the entirety of that 132-month term  i.e., from his arrest on August 11, 2000, onward. In a letter dated March 27, 2009, BOP Assistant General Counsel Sonya Cole explained that based on the agency's interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 3585(a), the earliest date a federal sentence could commence was the date of imposition, which meant, for purposes of calculating Lopez's GCT, that the relevant term of imprisonment was 38 months. Dissatisfied with this response, Lopez filed a complaint through the BOP's Administrative Remedy Program (ARP), which was denied initially by the prison warden, and on appeal by the BOP Regional Office. In a written decision dated July 23, 2009, the BOP Regional Director explained that the agency interpreted 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b) to permit the award of GCT only for time actually served rather than on the sentence imposed[,] which meant that Lopez was eligible for GCT only for the 38 months following the date on which he was sentenced in district court, and not for his 94 months of presentence custody. The Regional Director noted that the BOP had promulgated its interpretation of § 3624(b) under 28 C.F.R. § 523.20. Thereafter, Lopez filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the BOP's interpretation of § 3624(b); the district court granted the petition in March 2010. The court held that the agency's interpretation was unpersuasive under Skidmore, 323 U.S. 134, 65 S.Ct. 161, and was not entitled to deference because it conflicted with 28 C.F.R. § 523.17 (another agency regulation governing presentence custody) and did not rely on any particular agency expertise. Construing § 3624(b) in the first instance, therefore, the district court concluded that for purposes of calculating GCT, the phrase term of imprisonment in that statute encompass[ed] all of the time a prisoner serves for the federal offense, whether before or after the sentence date, and, if before the sentence date, whether credited under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b) or U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3. The court thus ordered the BOP to compute Lopez's GCT beginning from his initial date of incarceration on August 11, 2000, and, after factoring in his disciplinary record while in state and federal custody, this resulted in the advancement of Lopez's release date by approximately eight months. [1] Lopez was subsequently released from prison, but the BOP has asserted the right, pending this appeal, to re-incarcerate him for the remaining period of his sentence which the agency asserts he owes. [2]