Opinion
Civ. File No. 04-2730 (PAM/JSM).
December 30, 2004
ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Petitioner's objections to United States Magistrate Judge Janie S. Mayeron's Report and Recommendation dated November 30, 2004. Pursuant to statute, the Court has conducted a de novo review of the record. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Local Rule 72.1(c). Based on that review and Petitioner's arguments, the Court adopts the Report and Recommendation.
BACKGROUND
In 1988, Petitioner was sentenced to 240 months in federal prison for bank robbery. He is currently serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institute at Sandstone, Minnesota. On January 3, 2005, Petitioner will move to a community corrections center to serve the remainder of his sentence.
At issue is how much good time credit Petitioner has received while imprisoned. The Bureau of Prisons maintains that Petitioner will have earned 917 days of good time credit before his release if Petitioner does not lose any credit due to bad behavior. Based on that calculation, Petitioner's release date will be July 2, 2005. Petitioner claims that the Bureau's means of calculating good time credit is contrary to the good time credit statute, 18 U.S.C § 3624. He maintains that he should be given 1053 days of good time credit, assuming he maintains good conduct for the balance of his prison term, and that his release date should be January 5, 2005.
Petitioner could have earned 944 days of good time credit. However, he lost twenty-seven days in 2001 as a disciplinary sanction. Petitioner does not contest the loss of that good time credit.
Under the good time credit statute, an eligible prisoner may receive credit "beyond the time served, of up to 54 days at the end of year of the prisoner's term of imprisonment, beginning at the end of the first year of the term," subject to the Bureau's determination that "during that year, the prisoner had displayed exemplary compliance with institutional disciplinary regulations." 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1). The statute also provides that "credit for the last year or portion of a year of the term of imprisonment shall be prorated and credited within the last six weeks of the sentence." Id.
The Bureau promulgated a regulation interpreting § 3624(b)(1) as allowing an award of up to fifty-four days of credit for each year the prisoner actually served in prison. 28 C.F.R. § 523.20. Under that regulation, the Bureau determines whether the prisoner has met the requirements of good time at the end of each year served. If so, the Bureau may award the prisoner fifty-five days of credit towards the remainder of his sentence, and subtract fifty-four days from the prisoner's release date. If the prisoner has less than a year to serve, the amount of good time credits is prorated based on the time left to serve.
The Bureau has also issued Program Statement 5880.28, which details how the Bureau applies good time credit to calculate a prisoner's release date.
Petitioner argues that the Bureau's regulation contravenes the clear text of § 3624. He maintains that he should receive fifty-four days for each year of the sentence imposed by the Court — not time he actually served — minus any deductions for disciplinary violations.
DISCUSSION
Petitioner raises an issue of statutory interpretation involving the calculation of good time credit for prisoners serving federal sentences. When a court reviews an agency's interpretation of a federal statute, the threshold question is whether "Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue" so that congressional intent is clear. Chevron, U.S.A. v. Nat'l Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 844 (1984). An agency is entitled to no deference if Congress has unequivocally expressed its intent in the statute. Food Drug Admin. v. Brown Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 125-26 (2000);Chevron, U.S.A., 467 U.S. at 842-43. However, "if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute." Chevron, U.S.A., 467 U.S. at 843.
Even if the agency is entitled to deference, the level of deference varies depending on the type of agency interpretation.Cf. Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U.S. 576, 587 (2000) ("Interpretations such as those . . . in policy statements, agency manuals, and enforcement guidelines, all of which lack the force of law" are entitled to respect but not dispositive force), with Yellow Transp., Inc. v. Michigan, 537 U.S. 36, 45 (2003) (regulation promulgated after notice and comment is entitled to high deference when Congress has expressly authorized an agency to promulgate rules). A court must afford the agency full deference only when "it appears that Congress delegated authority to the agency generally to make rules carrying the full force of law, and that the agency interpretation claiming deference was promulgated in the exercise of that authority," such as when the agency engages in notice and comment rulemaking. United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 218, 226-27 (2001).
This case turns on whether Congress clearly defined the phrase "term of imprisonment" in 18 U.S.C. § 3624. Magistrate Judge Mayeron found that the phrase "term of imprisonment" is § 3624 ambiguous and therefore susceptible to the construction adopted by the Bureau. She further found that the Bureau's interpretation of the statute, as evinced by 28 C.F.R. § 523.30, is reasonable. The Magistrate's interpretation of the statute is akin to that of the Courts of Appeals for the Seventh and Ninth Circuits. See White v. Scibana, 390 F.3d 997, 1001-03 (7th Cir. 2004);Pacheco-Camacho v. Hood, 272 F.3d 1266, 1268-69 (9th Cir. 2001).
This Court finds no error in the Magistrate's reasoning or conclusions, and likewise adopts the reasoning of the Seventh and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals. The good time credit statute does not clearly define what "term of imprisonment" means, and uses the phrase inconsistently to refer both to the sentence imposed and the sentence served. For example, in § 3624(a), the statute mandates that the Bureau release a prisoner "on the expiration of the prisoner's term of imprisonment, less any time credited" under § 3624(b). In this context, the phrase "term of imprisonment" must refer to the expiration of the sentence imposed, since a prisoner is released when he has completed his sentence. Similarly, in one part of § 3524(b), the statute provides that a prisoner is eligible for good time credit if he is "serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year," other than a term of life imprisonment. The phrase "term of imprisonment" in this part of § 3524(b) must also refer to the sentence imposed because Bureau determines whether a prisoner is eligible for the credit when the prisoner begins to serve his sentence.
The Court also notes that several other district courts, including those in the District of Minnesota, have held that "term of imprisonment" as used in § 3524 is ambiguous, and have deferred to the Bureau's interpretation. See, e.g., James v. Outlaw, File No. 03-5476 (D. Minn. June 21, 2004) (Kyle, J.).
However, the specific use of the phrase "term of imprisonment" at issue here — in the part of § 3524(b) that describes how good time credit is awarded — does not to refer to the sentence imposed. That part provides that a prisoner may receive good time credit "beyond the time served, of up to 54 days at the end of each year of the prisoner's term of imprisonment." 18 U.S.C. § 3524(b)(1). It therefore establishes a process of awarding credit at the end of each year of imprisonment based on a review of the prisoner's behavior during that year. This process would be undermined if "term of imprisonment" was synonymous with "sentence imposed" because the accumulation of good time credit reduces the amount of time a prisoner will ultimately spend in prison, sometimes by more than one year. Of course, the Bureau cannot evaluate a prisoner's behavior and award credit for good conduct if the prisoner has already been released. Moreover, the retrospective annual assessment and award of credit is the core of § 3624. Interpreting "term of imprisonment" to mean "sentence imposed" to describe how good time credit is awarded is inconsistent with the retrospective year-end evaluation and award system § 3624 contemplates. Such an interpretation would allow a prisoner to receive credit for good behavior in prison for time that he was not in prison.
The Court recognizes that a general rule of statutory construction provides that identical words used in different parts of the same statute are presumed to have the same meaning.See Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U.S. 561, 570 (1995). However, the rule is only a presumption, and should not be applied when variations in the context indicate that Congress used the words with different intent. See General Dynamics Land Sys., Inc. v. Cline, 540 U.S. 581, 124 S. Ct. 1236, 1245 (2004).
The Court recognizes that § 3624 provides a proration of the credit for the partial year at the end of a sentence by awarding the credit in the last six weeks of the sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1). However, the Court further recognizes that the Bureau cannot calculate the length of the partial year when the prisoner begins to serve his sentence because everything depends on whether the prisoner behaves well.
Accordingly, this Court finds that it is impossible to make sense of § 3624 while giving the phrase "term of imprisonment" one meaning. It therefore holds that § 3624 is ambiguous because it does not clearly indicate whether the fifty-four days of credit for good behavior for each year of the prisoner's "term of imprisonment" is based on the sentence imposed or the time served in prison. Because § 3624 is ambiguous, the Court looks to the Bureau's interpretation of the statute.
The Bureau's interpretation of the § 3624(b), as embodied in 28 C.F.R. § 523.20, was adopted pursuant to notice and comment rule making. See 62 Fed. Reg. 50, 786 (Sept. 26, 1997). The Bureau's interpretation is therefore entitled to full deference. Under that review, the Court finds that the Bureau's interpretation is reasonable. The Bureau's formula is premised on the notion that a prisoner may receive a maximum of fifty-four days' credit each year if the prisoner behaves well every day of the year. This interpretation is consistent with the purpose of § 3624 to retrospectively assess a prisoner's behavior and award credit for good behavior throughout the year. As Magistrate Judge Mayeron noted, if prisoners were given good time credit based on the full length of their sentences as imposed by the Court, they would receive credit for good conduct when they were not even in prison. This interpretation would lead to an absurd result.
CONCLUSION
Pursuant to statute, the Court has conducted a de novo review of the record. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Local Rule 72.1(c)(2). Based on that review and all the arguments of the parties, the Court ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation (Clerk Doc. No. 20). Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that:
1. Petitioner's Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (Clerk Doc. No. 1) is DENIED;
2. All pending Motions in this matter (Clerk Doc. Nos. 3, 5, 7, 16, 17, 18, and 19) are DENIED as moot; and
3. This action is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.
LET JUDGMENT BE ENTERED ACCORDINGLY.