Cullar v. Warden, FCI Sandstone
- Jeffrey Bryan
- 0:24-cv-03741
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 4
In Cullar v. Warden, FCI Sandstone, Judge Bryan partly granted and partly denied Cullar’s motion, leaving the dismissal intact but changing it to without prejudice.
Petitioner Paris M. Cullar remains unable to proceed with his amended petition in this action, but the dismissal is changed from with prejudice to without prejudice. The respondent is Warden, FCI Sandstone.
What happened
Paris M. Cullar filed a petition asking the court to review how the Bureau of Prisons calculated his PATTERN score, arguing that an Amendment 821 sentence reduction should lower the score. The court previously dismissed the petition and struck his amended petition.
Cullar asked the court to undo that order and restore the amended petition. He argued that the amended petition was timely and that the dismissal should not have been with prejudice.
In Cullar v. Warden, FCI Sandstone, Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan granted the motion in part and denied it in part. The court refused to vacate its earlier order or restore the amended petition, but amended the judgment so the case was dismissed without prejudice.
The detailed version
- Cullar v. Warden, FCI Sandstone · No. 0:24-cv-03741
- Jeffrey M. Bryan
- Apr. 24, 2025
Background
Paris M. Cullar filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the calculation of his PATTERN score. He argued that his Amendment 821 sentence reduction should retroactively lower his score from “Medium” to “Low.” A magistrate judge recommended dismissal because Cullar’s particular arguments were not claims that could be brought through a § 2241 petition, meaning the court concluded it lacked jurisdiction over the action.
Cullar objected to that recommendation and filed an amended petition. The court’s March 13, 2025 order overruled his objection, adopted the recommendation, struck the amended petition as untimely under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(1), and directed that the matter be dismissed with prejudice.
Motion to Vacate and Amend the Judgment
Cullar moved under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 59(e) and 60(b)(4) to vacate the March 13 order and alter the judgment. He argued that the court incorrectly found his amended petition untimely because the docket did not show when the respondent was served with the original petition.
The court rejected that argument. It explained that Rule 15(a)(1) applies in habeas actions and permits an amended pleading without the court’s permission within twenty-one days after service of the original petition or within twenty-one days after an opponent serves a responsive pleading. The court noted that Cullar filed the amended petition almost ten weeks after filing the original petition and eight weeks after the respondent filed a notice of appearance. The court also stated that, even if the amended petition had been timely, its request for an order requiring the Bureau of Prisons to determine and recalculate Cullar’s PATTERN score was beyond the reach of a § 2241 claim.
Ruling
Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan held that the March 13 order would not be vacated and that the amended petition would not be reinstated. The court agreed, however, that directing the clerk to dismiss the action with prejudice was a clerical error. It therefore granted Cullar’s motion in part and denied it in part: the judgment must be amended to state that the action was dismissed without prejudice.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.