Pope v. Perdue

Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant’s habeas petition that challenged defendant-Federal Bureau of Prison’s decision regarding effective start date of his federal sentence. Defendant’s petition was not moot even though defendant was released from prison at some point during the instant proceedings, since favorable finding on instant petition would carry great weight in any section 3583(e) motion to reduce his term of supervised release. Moreover, Bureau erred in finding that defendant’s federal sentence began on date state authorities transferred defendant to federal authorities upon completion of his state sentence that concerned same incident that formed basis of his federal conviction, since record showed that, after defendant had been sentenced on his federal charge, state authorities had relinquished “primary custody” of defendant by transferring him to federal facility for period of time during defendant’s service of his state sentence. As such, defendant should have been given credit on his federal sentence for time he had spent in federal facility prior to completion of his state sentence. Also, Bureau had misapplied 18 USC section 3584(a), where it denied defendant’s request for retroactive designation of state facility as his place of imprisonment for his federal sentence, since Bureau drew unwarranted inference through silence by Dist. Ct. on whether defendant’s federal sentence should run consecutively or concurrently with his state sentence.