Court Opinion

ID: 9785041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:01:29.665304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:08.019825
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       AUG 30 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TONG MOUA,                                      No. 23-15160

                Petitioner-Appellant,           D.C. No. 1:22-cv-00948-JLT-SKO

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
B. M. TRATE,

                Respondent-Appellee.

                    Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Eastern District of California
                   Jennifer L. Thurston, District Judge, Presiding

                           Submitted August 15, 2023**

Before:      TASHIMA, S.R. THOMAS, and FORREST, Circuit Judges.

      Federal prisoner Tong Moua appeals pro se from the district court’s

judgment dismissing his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas petition. We have jurisdiction

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo, see United States v. Lemoine, 546

F.3d 1042, 1046 (9th Cir. 2008), and we affirm.

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
      Moua contends that the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) improperly set a higher

payment schedule for his participation in the Inmate Financial Responsibility

Program (“IFRP”) than what the district court ordered in his criminal judgment,

thereby contradicting “the spirit” of this court’s caselaw and the Mandatory

Victims Restitution Act (“MVRA”). The district court did not err in dismissing

Moua’s habeas petition. Where, as here, the sentencing court has properly set a

restitution payment schedule, neither this court’s caselaw nor the MVRA “places

any limits on the BOP’s operation of an independent program, such as the IFRP,

that encourages inmates voluntarily to make more generous restitution payments

than mandated in their respective judgments.” Lemoine, 546 F.3d at 1048. The

authority Moua cites does not compel a contrary conclusion. See Ward v. Chavez,

678 F.3d 1042, 1047 (9th Cir. 2012) (discussing Lemoine).

      AFFIRMED.

                                         2                                     23-15160