Opinion
Civil No. 1:CV-04-2260.
May 13, 2005
MEMORANDUM
Kent Crawford, an inmate at the Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution, Minersville, Pennsylvania, filed this pro se petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, essentially making the following claims against the United States Parole Commission after the Commission revoked his parole. First, the Commission deprived him of due process when it revoked his mandatory release based upon violations of parole conditions never explained to him because he had not been given the usual certificate of mandatory release explaining the conditions of supervision. Second, Petitioner was inadequately supervised when the Commission released him without informing him of the conditions of release. Third, he should not have forfeited nine months of street time, again because he was not told this loss could result from violations of conditions. Fourth, the D.C. Department of Corrections failed to give him credit for two months he spent in the D.C. Jail from October 19, 1998, to December 19, 1998. According to Crawford, if he had been given an award of sentence credit for these two months, his sentence would have terminated before the Commission issued its violation warrant that led to the incarceration challenged here, and the Commission would not have had jurisdiction to issue a warrant.
We will dismiss the petition. As the government argues, it became moot when Petitioner was released from confinement on the parole-revocation sentence. See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 7, 118 S.Ct. 978, 983, 140 L.Ed.2d 43, 50 (1998). If there had been any collateral consequences from the revocation, the petition may not have been mooted, but collateral consequences are not presumed in a habeas challenge to a parolerevocation sentence, id. at 14, 118 S.Ct. 978, 986, 140 L.Ed.2d at 54, there do not appear to be any such consequences, and Petitioner does not argue that there are any. The petition is therefore moot and will be dismissed. Id. at 7, 118 S.Ct. at 983, 140 L.Ed.2d at 50; see also United States v. Kissinger, 309 F.3d 179 (3d Cir. 2002) (probation revocation).
The pertinent background is as follows. Crawford was sentenced by the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on January 18, 1989, to an aggregate sentence of twelve years and 180 days for various drug offenses. Crawford was mandatorily released on this sentence from FCI-Schuylkill on November 8, 2002.
The Commission received a succession of violation reports from the U.S. Probation Office. On August 26, 2003, the Commission issued a revocation warrant. At that time, it had a BOP sentence computation showing that the full term of Crawford's sentence, less 180 days, was October 11, 2003. (Doc. 4, Ex. K, p. 2, Sentence Monitoring Computation Data). On October 27, 2003, the Commission's warrant was executed. On February 5, 2004, the revocation hearing was held. On February 23, 2004, the Commission issued a Notice of Action revoking Crawford's mandatory release, ordering the forfeiture of all time spent on mandatory release, and continuing Crawford to the expiration of his sentence. (Doc. 4, Ex. O, Notice of Action). At that time, the forfeiture of Crawford's time under supervision resulted in a new projected mandatory release date of December 14, 2004. (Doc. 4, Ex. N, p. 1).
Seven months later, a BOP official at FCI-Schuylkill told the Commission that the BOP had decided to award Crawford credit toward his violator term for fifty-two days that he had spent in the D.C. Jail between October and December of 1998, in connection with his arrest on a charge of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, (Doc. 4, Ex. P, e-mail), the apparent subject of Petitioner's fourth claim in the instant petition. This new calculation changed Crawford's sentence, producing retroactively a new 180-day date of August 20, 2003, (Doc. 4, Ex. Q, Sentence Monitoring Computation), six days before the Commission issued its warrant.
Consequently, on September 29, 2004, the Commission gave Crawford the benefit of the revised 180-day date, issuing a Notice of Action ordering: "Release forthwith from the custody of the warrant dated August 26, 2003 and close case." Under the heading of "Reasons" the Commission stated: "Your sentence was re-computed by the BOP and has expired." (Doc. 4, Ex. R, Notice of Action).
Based on the forgoing, the petition became moot on September 29, 2004, when Petitioner was released "from the custody of the warrant" even though there was a case or controversy on September 16, 2004, the date the petition was filed. See Spencer, supra. We will issue an appropriate order.
ORDER
AND NOW, this 13th day of May, 2005, it is ordered that:
1. The petition (doc. 1) under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 is dismissed as moot.
2. The Clerk of Court shall close this file.