Sharma v. Eischen

Background

Aditya Raj Sharma pleaded guilty in 2021 to wire fraud and received a 60-month prison sentence, later reduced to 51 months. He is serving that sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Duluth, Minnesota. Sharma filed a habeas petition, which is a request to challenge unlawful custody, seeking an order requiring the Federal Bureau of Prisons to place him outside prison for the rest of his custodial term—either on home confinement or at a residential re-entry center.

Sharma relied on time credits earned through evidence-based recidivism-reduction programs under the First Step Act. The opinion states that, as of August 5, 2024, he had earned 345 days of credits. Because up to 365 days of credits could be applied to reduce his overall custodial term, the Bureau of Prisons had applied all of Sharma’s credits to shortening his sentence. No credits remained available to accelerate his eligibility for prerelease custody.

The opinion also states that the Bureau of Prisons had declined, in its discretion, to place Sharma in prerelease custody under a separate statutory provision. The stated reasons included a new federal wire-fraud indictment and Sharma’s prison disciplinary record. Sharma told the court that he was not challenging that discretionary decision and was relying instead on the First Step Act.

Court’s analysis

The court identified an additional, jurisdictional problem. Federal habeas relief is available when a prisoner challenges the fact or overall duration of custody. It is not available, under controlling United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit precedent cited in the report, for a claim that the prisoner should serve part of the same sentence at home or in a residential re-entry center. The court treated Sharma’s request as a challenge to the conditions or location of confinement rather than a challenge to the total amount of time he must remain in custody.

The court rejected Sharma’s reliance on decisions from other jurisdictions that had granted habeas relief involving prerelease custody. It stated that Eighth Circuit law controlled. The court also rejected Sharma’s argument based on Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. According to the court, that decision concerned judicial deference to an agency’s interpretation of an unclear statute, while the habeas-jurisdiction rule here came from judicial interpretations of the federal habeas statute rather than from the Bureau of Prisons’ interpretation of the First Step Act.

The report further states that the court could, in appropriate circumstances, reinterpret a self-represented litigant’s filing as a non-habeas civil action. It declined to recommend doing so here because Sharma had no remaining First Step Act credits that had not already been applied to his sentence and therefore had no plausible claim under the court’s analysis. The court also noted that a non-habeas civil action would subject a prisoner to the full statutory filing fee.

Other motions and recommendation

Sharma requested expedited briefing and an expedited hearing. The court had previously granted expedited briefing in part and denied it in part. After reviewing the briefing, the court concluded that a hearing was unnecessary and recommended that the motion be denied to the extent it remained pending.

Sharma also sought sanctions against the federal government, criminal charges against the respondent, and summary judgment in his favor based on alleged falsification of two documents. The court found these requests unsupported and recommended denying the motion for sanctions.

Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster recommended that: (1) Sharma’s habeas petition be denied; (2) the action be dismissed without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction; (3) his motion for a hearing be denied; and (4) his motion for sanctions be denied. The document is a report and recommendation, not a final order or judgment, and the notice states that it is not directly appealable to the Eighth Circuit. The parties could file written objections within the period stated in the notice.