Court Opinion

ID: 9498808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:28:41.990556+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:05.015392
License: Public Domain

*1093RILEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Almost two years ago, this same panel entertained a challenge to the temporal limitations of 18 U.S.C. § 3624(c). See Elwood v. Jeter, 386 F.3d 842 (8th Cir.2004). The majority in Elwood interpreted 18 U.S.C. §§ 3621(b) and 3624(c), and held the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has discretion to transfer a prisoner to a community confinement center (CCC) at any time during a prisoner’s incarceration, notwithstanding section 3624(c)’s express six-month limitation for such confinements. Id. at 847. In my dissenting opinion, I concluded the specific limitation of authority to transfer prisoners to CCCs was mandated by Congress in section 3624(c), and the express six-month limitation did not conflict with the general authority Congress gave in section 3621(b). Id. at 848-49 (Riley, J., dissenting). This construction of the two statutes harmonized the law, did not render any terms in either statute meaningless, comported with the canon of statutory construction “the specific governs the general,” and carried out Congress’s intent. Id. at 847-48 (Riley, J., dissenting).
On February 14, 2005, in response to Elwood and similarly decided cases, the BOP implemented regulations identifying a category of inmates who are ineligible for transfer to CCCs under section 3621(b): those inmates whose remaining sentence exceeds the lesser of six months or 10% of their original sentence. 28 C.F.R. § 570.20, 570.21. These regulations use the BOP’s discretionary authority under section 3621(b) to bring the BOP’s procedures into compliance with section 3624(c). The majority, however, believes the BOP’s regulations conflict with section 3621(b).
I am convinced the BOP’s categorical rules governing transfer of inmates to CCCs, and implementing section 3624(c), do not conflict with the factors enumerated in section 3621(b). My conviction coincides with Judge Fuentes’s dissenting opinion in Woodall v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 432 F.3d 235, 251-52 (3rd Cir.2005). Judge Fuentes concluded that until the lesser of six months or 10% of an inmate’s sentence remains, the BOP may categorically preclude the consideration of any inmate for CCC transfer. Id. (Fuentes, J., dissenting and citing three similar opinions upholding the regulations).
Section 3621(b)’s requirement that the BOP make individualized assessments when transferring inmates to CCCs applies only when the BOP elects to consider whether to make a transfer. The BOP is not required to consider transferring any inmate under its custody before the point in an inmate’s sentence identified by statute. In Lopez v. Davis, 531 U.S. 230, 121 S.Ct. 714, 148 L.Ed.2d 635 (2001), the Supreme Court held the BOP is authorized to create categorical rules, because “[e]ven if a statutory scheme requires individualized determinations ... the decisionmaker has the authority to rely on rulemaking to resolve certain issues of general applicability unless Congress clearly expresses an intent to withhold that authority.” Id. at 243-44, 121 S.Ct. 714 (internal quotation omitted). The statute is clear, see section 3624(c), and the applicable Supreme Court holding is unmistakable, see Lopez, 531 U.S. at 243-44, 121 S.Ct. 714. The BOP’s regulations properly follow and implement the law.
Accordingly, I dissent.