Flowers v. Federal Bureau of Prisons

Background

Joe N. Flowers, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, filed a self-represented petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the Bureau of Prisons’ calculation of his federal sentence. The warden of that facility responded, and Flowers filed a reply.

Flowers had three sentences. A New York state court imposed a seven-year sentence on August 19, 2011, for violating New York Penal Law § 130.80(1)(b). A federal court imposed a seven-year sentence on September 6, 2012, for violating 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a), and ordered it to run consecutively to the first state sentence. The next day, a New York state court imposed an indeterminate sentence of one year and four months to four years for violating New York Penal Law § 130.40(2). That court ordered the second state sentence to run consecutively to the first state sentence and concurrently with the federal sentence.

The first state sentence expired on July 7, 2018. Flowers remained in state custody for four more months and was transferred to federal custody on November 7, 2018. During administrative review, the Bureau contacted the federal sentencing judge, who stated that he had no objection to the federal sentence running concurrently with the second state sentence. The Bureau then treated the federal sentence as beginning retroactively on July 7, 2018, while maintaining that it ran consecutively to the first state sentence.

Issues and governing rules

A petition under § 2241 may challenge the execution of a federal sentence, including prison officials’ computation of the sentence. The petitioner bears the burden of proving, by a greater-than-50-percent standard, that custody violates federal law. The court also explained that federal sentence calculation requires determining when the sentence began and what prior custody credit is available under 18 U.S.C. § 3585.

Under § 3585(a), a federal sentence generally begins when the defendant is received into federal custody to begin serving it. Under § 3585(b), prior detention can be credited only if it has not already been credited against another sentence. The court also noted that a challenge to how the federal sentencing judge imposed the sentence would have to be brought in the sentencing court, rather than through this petition.

Court’s analysis

The court held that the Bureau correctly treated the federal sentence as beginning on July 7, 2018, when the first state sentence expired. The federal judgment required the federal sentence to run consecutively to the first state sentence. The Bureau’s retroactive designation allowed the federal sentence to run concurrently with the second state sentence, consistent with the state court’s order and the federal sentencing judge’s later statement.

The court also held that the Bureau correctly awarded Flowers 19 days of credit. Those days reflected periods of detention connected to the federal offenses that had not been credited to the first state sentence. Flowers could not receive credit for time spent in custody under a writ bringing him to federal court to answer charges because the first state sentence was still being served and the state retained primary custody.

The court rejected Flowers’s argument that New York Penal Law § 70.25 required the first and second state sentences to run concurrently. The state court had expressly ordered the second state sentence to run consecutively to the first. To the extent Flowers challenged the legality or classification of the second state sentence under state law, the federal court said that issue was not properly before it on federal sentence-execution review.

Flowers also argued in his reply that he should receive 12 months of credit based on the first state sentence’s conditional-release date of July 7, 2017. The court stated that he had not shown exhaustion of administrative remedies for that request. It further stated that the request would fail on the merits because the first state sentence expired on July 7, 2018, and Flowers did not receive conditional release earlier.

Disposition

Judge Lorna G. Schofield denied the petition. The court directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment dismissing the petition, close the case, and mail the opinion and order to Flowers. The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for an appeal.