Curtis v. Billingsey
- Paul Gardephe
- 1:16-cv-02558
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 9
Curtis v. Billingsley: Judge Gardephe denied Curtis’s habeas petition seeking credit for time held in federal custody before sentencing.
Melvin Curtis, whose request for federal-sentence credit for pre-sentencing federal custody was denied; Terry Billingsley was the respondent.
What happened
In Melvin Curtis v. Terry Billingsley, Curtis challenged his federal sentence and sought credit for time he spent in federal custody before his federal sentencing. The court had already dismissed his challenge to his guilty plea in an earlier order.
Curtis argued that his federal sentence should receive credit for the period from August 9, 2006, to April 22, 2008, when he was held federally under a court order while serving a state sentence. The Bureau of Prisons had not credited that period toward his federal sentence because the time had already been credited against his state sentence.
Judge Gardephe adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation in full and denied the petition. He ruled that Curtis’s federal sentence could not begin before it was imposed and that Curtis had not shown he would have been released from state custody without the federal proceedings.
The detailed version
- Curtis v. Billingsey · No. 1:16-cv-02558
- Paul Gardephe
- Mar. 21, 2020
Background
Melvin Curtis filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a procedure used to challenge the execution or calculation of a federal sentence. He was serving a New York state sentence when federal authorities brought him into federal custody on August 9, 2006, under a court order requiring his appearance for federal criminal proceedings.
Curtis later pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of New York to a federal drug-conspiracy charge. On April 23, 2008, he received a 235-month federal sentence, which was later reduced to 140 months. The Bureau of Prisons credited him for time served in state custody after the federal sentence was imposed, but did not credit the period from August 9, 2006, through April 22, 2008, because he had already received credit for that time against his state sentence.
Curtis’s petition raised two claims: that his guilty plea was not knowing and voluntary because his lawyer was ineffective, and that he was improperly denied credit against his federal sentence. In a prior order, the Eastern District of New York dismissed the guilty-plea challenge because it had been brought under the wrong habeas procedure and was untimely. That court transferred the sentence-calculation issue to the Southern District of New York.
Report and Recommendation
Magistrate Judge James L. Cott recommended denying the petition. He concluded that Curtis’s federal sentence did not begin until the federal sentence was imposed on April 23, 2008. He also concluded that Curtis was not entitled to credit for the earlier federal-custody period because Curtis had not shown that he would have been released under available state procedures if the federal case had not occurred.
Court’s Analysis
The court adopted Judge Cott’s report and recommendation in its entirety. It explained that 18 U.S.C. § 3585(a) generally prevents a federal sentence from beginning before the date it is imposed. Curtis therefore could not receive credit based solely on his having been held in federal custody before his federal sentencing.
The court also considered an exception discussed in an earlier case: credit might be available if, without the federal action, the prisoner would have been released under available state procedures. Judge Gardephe agreed with Judge Cott that this exception was not consistent with § 3585(b)’s prohibition on counting the same custody time toward two sentences. In any event, the court found that Curtis had not shown that his release from state custody was assured. The record included his return to state custody in May 2008 and his additional detention for a parole-violation sentence.
Disposition
The court adopted the report and recommendation in full, denied the petition, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the case.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.