Mills v. Starr

Background

Jacqueline Deniese Mills, who represented herself, is serving a 150-month sentence for wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering. She filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a procedure prisoners may use to challenge the fact or duration of their confinement. Mills asked the court to require the Bureau of Prisons to apply her First Step Act earned time credits and transfer her to home confinement under the CARES Act.

A magistrate judge recommended denying the petition, denying Mills’s related motions as moot, and dismissing the matter without prejudice. Mills objected. She argued that the Bureau of Prisons had miscalculated her credits, including by failing to count her work as a tutor, and that the Bureau had improperly excluded 12 days. She also continued to seek home confinement.

First Step Act Credits

The court held that Mills’s request to apply her earned time credits was premature. Under the court’s reading of the First Step Act, the Bureau of Prisons may apply credits when the credits equal the remainder of the prisoner’s sentence. Because Mills had more time remaining on her 150-month sentence than the number of credits calculated by the Bureau, the court denied this part of her petition.

The court also considered Mills’s challenge to the Bureau’s earlier calculation of 555 days of credits. The Bureau later recalculated her credits nationwide, determining that she had 365 days of credits toward early release and 140 days toward prerelease custody or supervised release. The Bureau projected a release date of November 13, 2027, which the court found was essentially the same as the approximately November 12, 2027 date Mills requested. The court therefore found this challenge moot because the revised calculation had not delayed her projected release date.

The court rejected Mills’s argument that her tutoring work had not been counted, finding that the Bureau’s calculation included her time tutoring other inmates. The court also did not disagree with the Bureau’s exclusion of 12 days spent in an outside hospital or traveling between prison facilities.

CARES Act and Home Confinement

The court held that the CARES Act gives the Bureau of Prisons, not the courts, authority to decide prisoner placement. It therefore concluded that Mills’s challenge to the Bureau’s home-confinement decision was not reviewable by this court. The court also stated that prisoners do not have a constitutional right to placement in a particular facility or place of confinement.

Mills asserted due-process, equal-protection, and cruel-and-unusual-punishment violations based on the denial of home confinement. The court ruled that these claims could not be pursued through a § 2241 petition because they did not challenge the legality, fact, or duration of her detention. It agreed that dismissal without prejudice was appropriate and declined to convert the claims into a civil-rights action.

Other Motions and Disposition

The court adopted the report and recommendation, overruled Mills’s objections, and denied her § 2241 petition. It denied Mills’s Motions to Inform, Motion to Inform and Request Extension, and Motion to Supplement the Record/Take Notice as moot. The court dismissed the matter without prejudice, meaning the dismissal itself did not bar refiling, and directed that judgment be entered accordingly.