Court Opinion

ID: 9486979
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:05:16.004613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:02.300222
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the majority that Mr. De-Maio’s confinement at the VOA did not supply a basis for a further downward departure under section 5K1.1 of the Guidelines. I am not convinced, however, that the ten months Mr. DeMaio spent at this facility prior to sentencing cannot be credited as time spent in “official detention” for purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b). See ante at 591. Mr. DeMaio was ordered detained pending trial; and his transfer to the VOA represented a modification of that detention based, in some part, on his medical needs. Under these circumstances, our opinion in Ramsey v. Brennan, 878 F.2d 995 (7th Cir.1989), may not be controlling, particularly in light of the revision of the relevant statutory language. See generally Moreland v. United States, 968 F.2d 655, 662-63 (8th Cir.) (en banc) (Loken, J., concurring), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 675, 121 L.Ed.2d 598 (1992); see also Koray v. Sizer, 21 F.3d 558, 561-66 (3d Cir.1994). The majority suggests that Mr. DeMaio’s health problems were not so serious that his transfer to the VOA was really necessary. Yet, the petition for this transfer, in which the government joined, specifically cited his health as a reason for the transfer (Appellant’s Suppl.App. at 9); and the probation officer’s presentence report indicated that Mr. DeMaio had become “a physical risk” at the Marion County Jail “due to problems balancing himself and even with passing out” (id. at 36). Absent a contrary finding by the district court, then, I would accept the notion that detention at the VOA was indeed necessitated by Mr. DeMaio’s physical ailments.
At this juncture, we are only reviewing the sentence imposed on Mr. DeMaio, not the credit the Bureau of Prisons might or might not give him for the time he spent at the VOA. But assuming that the BOP might, in fact, deny Mr. DeMaio credit for this period, I would not deem the result of a challenge to that decision to be a foregone conclusion.