Jones v. Fikes

Background

Jeremy Jones, who was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota, was serving an aggregated 102-month sentence. He filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a law allowing a person in federal custody to challenge certain aspects of that custody. Jones alleged that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had improperly:

- denied him placement in a residential drug abuse program; - assigned him a custody classification without prior notice; - denied him placement in a residential reentry center; - denied him release or home confinement under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act; - calculated his inmate financial responsibility payments incorrectly; and - failed to provide adequate medical care for his ankle injury.

Jones also asked for a preliminary injunction, meaning an interim court order, requiring his transfer to a residential reentry center or home confinement. He sought permission to add allegations concerning his ankle injury and another medical-care claim.

Court’s analysis

The court reviewed Jones’s specific objections to the magistrate judge’s reports and recommendations. Because Jones represented himself, the court read his filings liberally, but it nevertheless adopted the recommendations in full.

For the residential drug abuse program claim, the court treated Jones’s challenge as an attempt to obtain review under the Administrative Procedure Act, which permits courts to set aside certain agency decisions that are arbitrary or capricious. The court held that 18 U.S.C. § 3625 removes that type of review for the BOP’s residential drug abuse program decisions. It therefore concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning legal authority, over that claim.

The court reached the same jurisdictional conclusion for Jones’s residential reentry center claim. It read the petition as challenging the BOP’s discretionary decision in Jones’s individual case, rather than challenging an unconstitutional policy, a violation of established federal law, or action beyond the BOP’s statutory authority. The court held that § 3625 barred judicial review of that discretionary placement decision.

As to the CARES Act claim, the court agreed that the law gave Jones the possibility of home confinement, not a right to it. The court held that Jones’s dissatisfaction with when the BOP would consider him for home confinement did not create a claim that the court could review. The reported COVID-19 exposure in Jones’s unit did not change that conclusion.

Regarding the inmate financial responsibility program, the court accepted the recommendation that the BOP could not require payments exceeding the restitution imposed in Jones’s sentence, but could ask Jones voluntarily to make additional payments. The court found that Jones stopped making payments in June 2020 and held that the consequences of refusing to participate in the voluntary program were not unconstitutional.

The court also adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendations concerning Jones’s other claims because Jones did not object to those recommendations. The November 2, 2020 recommendation had advised dismissing the custody-classification and deliberate-indifference claims without prejudice and denying the motion for a preliminary injunction and to amend the petition. The final order, however, dismissed the petition and denied the motion.

Disposition

Judge Susan Richard Nelson overruled Jones’s objections, adopted both reports and recommendations, dismissed Jones’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and denied his motion for a preliminary injunction and to amend the petition. The court entered judgment accordingly.