Betterton v. Fikes

Background

Darcy J. Betterton filed this action without a lawyer, seeking a writ of habeas corpus and permission to proceed without paying the filing fee. A magistrate judge recommended dismissing the petition without prejudice and denying the fee application as moot.

Betterton had been convicted of three drug-possession counts. On one count, he received a 300-month prison sentence and 96 months of supervised release. His petition challenged the future execution of that supervised release. Relying on United States v. Haymond, he argued that serving the full prison term followed by supervised release could create a constitutional problem if he later violated supervised release and received additional imprisonment after revocation. He proposed that the Bureau of Prisons release him after 17 years so that a possible later revocation sentence would not result in imprisonment beyond the maximum he identified.

Objections and Timeliness

Betterton’s objections to the magistrate judge’s recommendation were dated one day after the ordinary deadline. He submitted evidence that prison officials at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone did not deliver the recommendation to him until August 20, 2019. The court treated his argument as a request for more time and found that the delayed delivery, through no fault of his own, was excusable neglect. The court therefore treated the objections as timely and reviewed the challenged portions of the recommendation independently.

Court’s Analysis

The court held that Betterton’s petition was not ripe. Ripeness is a requirement that a dispute be sufficiently developed for judicial decision rather than depend on uncertain future events. Under Betterton’s theory, a constitutional violation would occur only if he first entered supervised release, violated its terms, was found to have violated them, and was then returned to prison. Because it was speculative whether any of those events would occur, the court concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning legal authority to decide the petition.

The court did not decide whether Betterton’s constitutional theory was correct on the merits. It stated that the magistrate judge’s recommendation was well reasoned but addressed additional arguments raised in Betterton’s objections before reaching the same disposition.

Disposition

The court overruled Betterton’s objections, accepted the Report and Recommendation, and dismissed the petition without prejudice. It denied the application to proceed without paying the filing fee as moot. The order directed that judgment be entered.