Opinion
04-C-833-C.
November 10, 2004
ORDER
In White v. Scibana, 314 F. Supp. 2d 834 (W.D. Wis. 2004), I concluded that the Bureau of Prisons was acting contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b) by calculating petitioner Yancey White's good conduct time on the basis of the actual time he had served rather than his imposed sentence. I granted White's petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and ordered the warden to recalculate White's good conduct time in accordance with § 3624(b). Respondent has appealed that decision and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit heard oral argument on the matter on September 9, 2004. A ruling on the appeal is expected before the end of this year.
Petitioner Brian M. McGrath is an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oxford, Wisconsin. His petition under § 2241 raises the same issue as that in White: he alleges that the bureau is calculating his good conduct time on the basis of time served rather than the sentence imposed. Petitioner has paid the $5 filing fee.
In the time that has passed since the Yancey White's petition was granted, several other prisoners at the Oxford facility have filed habeas corpus petitions challenging the Bureau of Prisons' method of calculating their good time credits. I have stayed the proceedings in most of these actions pending a decision on the appeal filed in White's case. I have decided to issue orders to show cause if (1) the petitioner submits a sentence computation from the Bureau of Prisons showing the inmate's term of imprisonment, good conduct time that has been both earned and disallowed, current release date and pre-release preparation date; and (2) I can conclude on the basis of that information that the petitioner would be entitled to imminent release or eligible for an imminent halfway house transfer after his good conduct time is recalculated in accordance with White.
In this case, it appears from the documentation attached to petitioner's petition that his release date is not imminent and that a stay of the proceedings is warranted. The Bureau of Prisons sentence computation sheet attached to petitioner's petition shows that petitioner was sentenced on August 12, 1996 to a 60-month term of imprisonment and that on May 29, 1998, petitioner was sentenced to a 210-month term of imprisonment to run concurrently with the 60-month sentence. The Bureau of Prisons has projected petitioner's earned good conduct time to 1045 days, his release date as November 9, 2015 and his pre-release date as May 9, 2015. If the Bureau recalculates petitioner's release date in accordance with White, petitioner will be entitled to release approximately 155 days earlier, and his pre-release date may be adjusted similarly. Nevertheless, even if petitioner's prerelease date is adjusted by approximately 155 days, it is years before it would occur. Therefore, neither petitioner's release nor his pre-release dates are so immediate that he will be prejudiced by a stay of the proceedings pending the court of appeals's decision in White.