Pittman v. Federal Bureau of Prisons
- Virginia Demarchi
- 5:22-cv-03806
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Pittman v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, Judge Demarchi treated the filing as habeas, granted two motions, and ordered a response.
Randy Dewayne Pittman and the respondent, the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
What happened
Pittman v. Federal Bureau of Prisons concerns Randy Dewayne Pittman’s challenge to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ calculation of his release date. He initially filed a prisoner civil-rights complaint and later filed a petition claiming that, including jail credit, he should be released on August 12, 2022.
The court struck the original complaint and treated the later petition, along with a supplement, as the operative filing. The court found that the release-date claim could proceed and required the respondent to explain why the requested court order should not issue.
Judge Virginia K. Demarchi granted Pittman permission to proceed without paying the filing fee and granted his motion to supplement the petition. The court ordered a response within 30 days, while allowing the respondent to file a motion to dismiss on procedural grounds instead.
The detailed version
- Pittman v. Federal Bureau of Prisons · No. 5:22-cv-03806
- Virginia Demarchi
- July 13, 2022
Background
Randy Dewayne Pittman, a federal prisoner housed at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, filed this case without a lawyer. He first filed a form complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and separately asked for permission to proceed without paying the filing fee. He later filed a handwritten petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a procedure used to challenge allegedly unlawful custody or the execution of a sentence.
According to the petition, Pittman was serving a sentence for a conviction from Dekalb County, Alabama, when the U.S. Marshals Service took him into custody for violating supervised-release conditions. He later received a one-year sentence in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Pittman asserted that, after including jail credit in his calculations, his expected discharge date should be August 12, 2022. He asked the court to direct the Bureau of Prisons to update his release date.
Court’s Analysis
The civil cover sheet suggested that Pittman intended to bring a habeas case, which was consistent with the allegations in his filings. The court therefore struck the complaint filed at Docket No. 1 and treated the petition filed at Docket No. 5 as the operative petition. The court also treated Pittman’s “motion to introduce evidence” as a motion to supplement the petition.
The court explained that it could review a challenge under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to the execution of a federal criminal sentence, including the calculation of a release date. It concluded that, when liberally construed, Pittman’s claim was legally cognizable and warranted an answer from the respondent. The court did not decide whether Pittman’s release-date calculation was correct.
Disposition
The court ordered the respondent to file and serve, within 30 days, an answer showing why the requested habeas relief should not issue. The respondent was also ordered to provide relevant portions of Pittman’s federal criminal record. The respondent could instead file a motion to dismiss on procedural grounds. The court granted Pittman’s request to proceed without paying the filing fee, with no fee due, and granted his motion to supplement the petition. The order terminated Docket Nos. 2 and 6.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.