U.S. v. Clay

Full title: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. DRENA SHARON CLAY

Court: United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana

Date published: Dec 1, 2009

CRIMINAL DOCKET NO. 04-378, SECTION "K" (E.D. La. Dec. 1, 2009)

Opinion

CRIMINAL DOCKET NO. 04-378, SECTION "K".

December 1, 2009

ORDER AND OPINION

STANWOOD DUVAL JR., District Judge

Before the Court is the "Motion to Convert Remainder of Sentence to Half Way House in New Orleans Area or to Home Confinement" filed on behalf of defendant Drena Clay (Doc. 329). Having reviewed the pleadings, memoranda, and relevant law, the Court, for the reasons assigned, DENIES the motion.

Drena Clay is presently serving a thirty month term of incarceration imposed by the Court following her conviction for violating the Hobbs Act, conspiracy to violate the Hobbs Act, conspiracy to obtain money by fraud from the Orleans Parish Public School system, and obtaining money by fraud from the Orleans Parish Public School System. Ms. Clay has approximately seven months of her term of imprisonment remaining to be served.

Ms. Clay seeks an order permitting her to serve the balance of her sentence in either a halfway house in the New Orleans area or in home confinement urging that she is in need of a liver transplant as a result of primary biliary cirrhosis, ¹ and that she cannot get on the transplant list at Tulane University Hospital and Clinic if she is not present in the Greater New Orleans area.

1 In support of her motion, Ms. Clay submitted a progress note regarding an April 9, 2009, examination at Tulane University Hospital and Clinic indicating that she has primary biliary cirrhosis. Ms. Clay also submitted a laboratory report from the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, reflecting a "Total Bilirubin" level greater than the "Reference Range."

LAW AND ANALYSIS

"The Attorney General of the United States is the federal official statutorily empowered to designate the place of confinement under a federal sentence. That authority has been delegated, by regulation to the Bureau of Prisons." United States v. Wells, 766 F.2d 12, 19 (1^st Cir. 1985) (citations omitted). Thus, the Court lacks the authority to order the Bureau of Prisons to transfer defendant to a half-way house in the New Orleans area for the remainder of her sentence.

The Court notes, that 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) grants the Director of Bureau of Prisons the discretion to file a motion to:

reduce the term of imprisonment (and may impose a term of probation or supervised release with or without conditions that does not exceed the unserved portion of the original term of imprisonment, after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable if it finds that —

(i) extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction;. . . .

There has been no such request in this case. Accordingly, the motion is DENIED.