Davis v. Baysore

Opinion

Appellate Case: 25-1273 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 07/16/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT July 16, 2026 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court WILLIE DAVIS,

Petitioner - Appellant,

v. No. 25-1273 (D.C. No. 1:25-CV-00156-STV) D. BAYSORE, Complex Warden, (D. Colo.)

Respondent - Appellee. _________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________

Before HARTZ, BACHARACH, and EID, Circuit Judges. _________________________________

This appeal involves whether the United States Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) has

authority to discipline prisoners who, like appellant Willie Davis, are confined in a

federal correctional institution. In a pro se application for habeas corpus under

28 U.S.C. § 2241, Davis argued that the BOP did not have such authority and

therefore had improperly deprived him of earned good conduct time (“GCT”). The

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined *

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. Appellate Case: 25-1273 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 07/16/2026 Page: 2

district court rejected his argument, denied his application, and dismissed the action

with prejudice. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

I

In 2009, Davis was convicted of multiple crimes and sentenced to a 216-month

term of imprisonment. In 2017, while serving that sentence, Davis was found guilty

of possessing contraband in prison and was sentenced to a 37-month consecutive

term of imprisonment. Based on his aggregated term of imprisonment, Davis was

eligible to earn 1,138 days of GCT. But due to numerous violations of institutional

rules and regulations, he has been disallowed 567 days of GCT and has forfeited 108

days of GCT, which resulted in a total loss of 675 days of GCT. He is currently

confined at the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility

(“ADX”) in Florence, Colorado, and is scheduled to be released in January 2027.

In his § 2241 habeas application, Davis asserted that the BOP lacked authority

to deprive him of GCT. 1 His theory was based on the interplay between 18 U.S.C.

§§ 4042(a) and 4042(d). Section 4042(a)(1) provides that, “under the direction of the

Attorney General,” the BOP “shall . . . have charge of the management and regulation

of all Federal penal and correctional institutions.” To that end, § 4042(a)(3) requires

the BOP to “provide for the protection, instruction, and discipline of all persons

charged with or convicted of offenses against the United States.” § 4042(a)(3)

(emphasis added). Pursuant to § 4042(a)(3), the BOP promulgated the disciplinary

1 Davis advanced two other claims, but he does not argue on appeal that the district court erred in denying them. We therefore omit them from our discussion. 2 Appellate Case: 25-1273 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 07/16/2026 Page: 3

program it used to reduce Davis’s GCT. See 28 C.F.R. § 541.1. But § 4042(d)

provides an exception to the BOP’s statutory duties, including its disciplinary

power: “This section shall not apply to military or naval penal or correctional

institutions or the persons confined therein.” § 4042(d). 2 Davis alleged that the

ADX is among the “correctional institutions” included in § 4042(d) and therefore the

BOP lacked authority to use its disciplinary program to reduce his GCT credits. He

sought restoration of the lost GCT and immediate release from custody.

The government opposed the application. The district court agreed with the

government’s argument and denied relief. The court rejected Davis’s position “that

the use of the second ‘or’” in § 4042(d) “separates ‘correctional institutions’ from the

words ‘military or naval.’” R. at 322–23. The court concluded instead “that the

language of the statute makes clear that the word ‘correctional institution’ is

modified by ‘military or naval,’ such that § 4042(d) only applies to military or naval

correctional institutions.” R. at 323. The court explained that Davis “fail[ed] to

recognize that the statute uses the term ‘military or naval’ to describe the type of

‘penal or correctional institutions’ that are exempt from Section 4042.” Id. “As a

result,” the court concluded, § 4042(d) “does not apply to the ADX because the ADX

is neither a military correctional institution nor a naval correctional institution,” and

therefore “the BOP is authorized under Section 4042(a)(3) to implement regulations

2 Contrary to Davis’s contention, see Aplt. Reply Br. at 2, 5, there is no comma after the word “penal” in the statute. 3 Appellate Case: 25-1273 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 07/16/2026 Page: 4

governing its inmate discipline program, which includes the authority to revoke GCT

credits.” Id.

Davis timely appealed.

II

In reviewing the denial of a § 2241 application, “we review the district court’s

legal conclusions de novo.” Leatherwood v. Allbaugh, 861 F.3d 1034, 1042

(10th Cir. 2017). Because Davis is pro se, we construe his filings liberally, but we

cannot act as his advocate. See Yang v. Archuleta, 525 F.3d 925, 927 n.1 (10th Cir.

2008).

“It is our primary task in interpreting statutes to determine congressional

intent, using traditional tools of statutory construction.” United States v. Manning,

526 F.3d 611, 614 (10th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). “We begin by

examining the statute’s plain language.” Id. “If the statutory language is clear, our

analysis ordinarily ends.” Id.; see also Edwards v. Valdez, 789 F.2d 1477, 1481

(10th Cir. 1986) (“It is a well established law of statutory construction that, absent

ambiguity or irrational result, the literal language of a statute controls.”).

We conclude § 4042(d)’s language is clear and unambiguous—the words

“military” and “naval” are adjectives that modify the phrase “penal or correctional

institutions.” Thus, § 4042 does not apply to “military . . . penal or correctional

institutions” or to “naval penal or corrections institutions.” We reject Davis’s

reading that the second “or” in the statute places “penal” and “correctional” in the

disjunctive, leaving “correctional institutions” as a stand-alone noun encompassing

4 Appellate Case: 25-1273 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 07/16/2026 Page: 5

the ADX. That reading requires viewing “military” and either “naval” or “naval

penal” as nouns. But it would make no sense to say § 4042 “shall not apply to”

either “military” or “naval” or “naval penal,” because none of those constructs

identifies any sort of cognizable prison facility. Thus, under Davis’s reading,

“military” and either “naval” or “naval penal” would be meaningless, which is

contrary to the principle that “we are to give meaning to every word of a statute

where possible,” Smith v. Midland Brake, Inc., 180 F.3d 1154, 1165 (10th Cir. 1999)

(en banc).

Moreover, it would be nonsensical for Congress to mandate that the BOP

“shall . . . have charge of the management and regulation of all Federal penal and

correctional institutions,” § 4042(a)(1), and then take that mandate away in

§ 4042(d). Instead, it was necessary for Congress to make § 4042 inapplicable to

military or naval prisons because “Congress . . . created a military penal system

distinct from the BOP,” and although “the Attorney General directly controls the

BOP, military penal institutions fall outside his authority.” United States v. Joshua,

607 F.3d 379, 384 (4th Cir. 2010); see also 18 U.S.C. § 4001(b)(1) (“The control and

management of Federal penal and correctional institutions, except military or naval

institutions, shall be vested in the Attorney General . . . .” (emphasis added)). 3

3 Our rejection of Davis’s reading of § 4042(d) dispenses with his arguments that “Congress expressly chose to create . . . tension” between § 4042(d) and § 4001, Aplt. Opening Br. at 11, and that the district court exceeded its jurisdiction under § 2241 by judicially amending § 4042(d), see Aplt. Reply Br. at 4, 11. 5 Appellate Case: 25-1273 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 07/16/2026 Page: 6

Thus, contrary to Davis’s argument, our reliance on § 4042(d)’s plain language does

not “produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of its drafters.”

Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S 564, 571 (1982).

Our conclusion that § 4042(d) is clear and unambiguous disposes of Davis’s

grammatical arguments and his contention that the statute is vague. It also disposes

of his reliance on the in pari materia canon of statutory construction and the rule of

lenity, both of which apply only when there is an ambiguity in a statute. See United

States v. McCarthy, 174 F.4th 1254, 1261 (10th Cir. 2026) (“It is a canon of

construction that statutes in pari materia should be construed together, so that

ambiguities in one statute may be resolved by looking at another statute on the same

subject.” (second emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States

v. Aguilar, 168 F.4th 1319, 1327 (10th Cir. 2026) (“If, after employing the usual

tools of statutory interpretation, we are left with a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty

concerning [a] statute, we employ the rule of lenity.” (emphasis added) (internal

quotation marks omitted)).

Davis’s one remaining argument meriting our attention is that by deferring to

the government’s reading of § 4042(d), the district court violated the teachings of

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024). We disagree.

In Loper Bright, the Supreme Court held that, under the Administrative

Procedures Act (“APA”), “‘the reviewing court’—not the agency whose action it

reviews—is to ‘decide all relevant questions of law’ and ‘interpret . . . statutory

provisions” without “mechanically afford[ing] binding deference to agency

6 Appellate Case: 25-1273 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 07/16/2026 Page: 7

interpretations.” Id. at 398–99 (alteration in original) (emphasis omitted) (quoting

5 U.S.C. § 706). Assuming Loper Bright applies outside of the APA context and to

arguments a federal agency raises in a legal brief, we see no error here. The district

court did not afford binding deference to the government’s reading of § 4042(d) but

merely stated that it agreed with the government’s argument before performing its

own analysis of § 4042(d). That was an entirely permissible approach. See Loper

Bright, 603 U.S. at 403 (explaining that “Congress expects courts to do their ordinary

job of interpreting statutes, with due respect for the views of the Executive Branch.”)

III

We affirm the district court’s judgment. We grant Davis’s motion to proceed

on appeal without prepayment of costs or fees and remind him that he remains

obligated to pay the full amount of the filing fee. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(1)

(excusing only “prepayment of fees”).

Entered for the Court

Allison H. Eid Circuit Judge