The Supreme Court ruled today that the Sentencing Reform Act does not require the federal prison system to calculate good timed served credits based on the sentence imposed.
The federal Bureau of Prisons has been interrupting "term of imprisonment" to mean time served, rather than sentence imposed, as it is interpreted throughout federal sentencing statutes. The BOP's interpretation has resulted in fewer days of available credit each year of the sentence.
Michael Barber was sentenced to 320 months in prison for drug trafficking and weapons possession. The BOP calculated his scheduled release as March 29, 2016. The BOP's maximum award of good time credit based on time served was 1,254 days; with good time credit based on the sentence imposed, the maximum available credit would be 1,440 days.
Tahir Jihad-Black was sentenced to 262 months in prison for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. The BOP calculated that his scheduled release date would be May 21, 2016 based on a maximum award of 1,027 of good time credit, according to BOP's formulation. With good time credit based on the sentence imposed, the maximum available good time credit would be 1,179 days.
Both men challenged the BOP's interpretation of the good time statute.
The district court ruled that the BOP's method is lawful and denied the petitions.
A three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of habeas corpus relief.
On June 7, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in a 6-3 decision by Justice Stephen Breyer.
"The statute's language and its purpose, taken together, convince us that the BOP's calculation method is lawful,"Breyer wrote for the majority.
Writing for the dissent, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that any ambiguities in the law should favor the inmates.
"Absent a clear congressional directive, the statute ought not to be read as the Court reads it," the justice wrote. "For the Court's interpretation -- an interpretation that in my submission is quite incorrect -- imposes tens of thousands of years of additional prison time on federal prisoners according to a mathematical formula they will be unable to understand. And if the only way to call attention to the human implications of this case is to speak in terms of economics, then it should be noted that the Court's interpretation comes at a cost to the taxpayers of untold millions of dollars."
Question presented: Does "term of imprisonment" in Section 212(a)(2) of the Sentencing Reform Act, enacting 18 U.S.C. 3624(b), unambiguously require the computation of good time credits on the basis of the sentence imposed?
