Garrett v. Eischen
- Leo Brisbois
- 0:25-cv-02128
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 4
Garrett v. Eischen: Magistrate Judge Brisbois recommends denying Garrett’s time-credit petition and dismissing the case with prejudice.
Detonya Garrett, a federal prisoner with consecutive sentences that included a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), is directly affected by the recommendation denying First Step Act time credits toward any part of his sentence.
What happened
In Garrett v. Eischen, Detonya Garrett challenged the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ refusal to award him First Step Act time credits. Garrett had consecutive sentences for a firearm offense that disqualifies prisoners from those credits and a drug offense that does not.
Garrett argued that credits should be applied to the drug-offense portion of his sentence. The court concluded that federal law treats consecutive sentences as one combined sentence for administrative purposes, so the disqualifying firearm conviction made him ineligible for credits toward any part of his sentence.
Magistrate Judge Leo I. Brisbois recommends denying the petition and dismissing the action with prejudice. The recommendation is not a final district-court order or judgment and is not directly appealable to the Court of Appeals.
The detailed version
- Garrett v. Eischen · No. 0:25-cv-02128
- Leo Brisbois
- May 22, 2025
Background
Detonya Garrett filed a petition challenging the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ decision not to award him time credits under the First Step Act of 2018. The Act generally allows eligible federal prisoners to earn and apply credits for successfully completing certain recidivism-reduction programs or productive activities. Federal prisoners convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), including the firearm offense described in the recommendation, are excluded from earning or applying those credits.
Garrett was convicted of one § 924(c) firearm offense and one drug offense under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). He received consecutive sentences of 60 months for the firearm offense and 58 months for the drug offense. He argued that, because the drug offense itself was not listed among the excluded offenses, the Bureau of Prisons should allow him to apply First Step Act credits to the drug-offense portion of his sentence.
Court’s Analysis
The court concluded that the restriction came from federal law rather than from a Bureau of Prisons regulation. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3584(c), multiple prison terms ordered to run consecutively or concurrently are treated as one aggregate term for administrative purposes. Applying that provision, the court determined that a conviction disqualifying a prisoner from First Step Act credits makes the prisoner ineligible for credits toward the entire sentence, not merely the portion connected to the disqualifying conviction.
Because Garrett had a conviction under § 924(c), the court concluded that he was ineligible for First Step Act credits toward any portion of his ongoing sentence. The recommendation states that the petition was reviewed under Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases, although Garrett’s petition was not brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
Recommended Disposition
The Report and Recommendation recommends that Garrett’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus be denied and that the action be dismissed with prejudice. The document states that it is not an order or judgment of the District Court and is therefore not directly appealable to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. It also states that a party may file specific written objections within 14 days after being served with the recommendation.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.