Loyd Jasper Ange, Jr. v. E. L. Paderick

521 F.2d 1066, 1975 U.S. App. LEXIS 13539

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: July 23, 1975
• Docket: 74-1181
• Status: Published

Opinions

DONALD RUSSELL, Circuit Judge:

This is a habeas action by a state prisoner seeking credit on his sentence. The District Court dismissed the petition. We affirm the denial on the ground heard by the District Court but remand for consideration of a claim for relief raised initially in this Court.

The petitioner was first arrested and arraigned on a federal charge on April 28, 1972. Bail was set at $2,500. Allegedly unable to make bail because of indigency, he was committed to the Portsmouth (Virginia) City Jail as a contract federal prisoner, awaiting trial on the federal offense. While so imprisoned, he was indicted on a state offense, and at his trial on that indictment on May 24, 1972 he plead guilty and was duly sentenced. After sentence he was returned to the City Jail as a federal prisoner still awaiting trial on his federal offense.

On September 13, 1972, he plead guilty in federal court and was sentenced to confinement for a term of four years. When so sentenced the District Court understood the petitioner was a state prisoner and recommended that his federal sentence be served in a Virginia State penal institution. Later on the same day, the District Court ascertained that the petitioner was considered a federal prisoner. It then revised its sentence and committed the petitioner to the custody of the United States Attorney General.

Petitioner remained as a federal prisoner in the Portsmouth City Jail from September 13, 1972 to October 1, 1972, when he was transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. On October 2, 1972, the District Court entered, on motion of the petitioner, and with the consent of the United States Attorney an order amending petitioner’s sentence by adding:

“The Court recommends that the sentence heretofore imposed on the 13th day of September 1972, be served, in whole or in part, in the Virginia State Penal System.”

On May 8, 1973, the petitioner was transferred to state custody.

The petitioner sought in his petition credit on his state sentence for the period from October 2, 1972, when the District Court entered its recommendation that petitioner be permitted to serve his federal sentence in a state prison, to May 8, 1973, when he was actually transferred from federal to state custody. This was the claim dismissed by the District Court.

In this Court, petitioner raised the additional claim that he is entitled to credit on his state sentence for the period from May 24, 1972 to September 13, 1972, under the reasoning of United States v. Gaines (2d Cir. 1971) 449 F.2d 143.¹

We shall first consider the original claim for credit as made by the petitioner. This claim for credit covers the period between the date of the District Court’s recommendation that petitioner be permitted to serve his federal sentence in a state prison and the date he was actually transferred to state custody. The theory on which the petitioner bases this claim is that, by reason of the recommendation of the District Court, he should immediately have been transferred from federal to state custody and, had he been so transferred, the service of his state sentence would have begun on October 2, 1972 rather than on May 8, 1973.

There are a number of difficulties in accepting this theory. In the first place, the theory assumes some effectiveness in the District Court’s recommendation. There was none. Hamilton v. Salter (4th Cir. 1966) 361 F.2d 579, 581; United States v. Herb (6th Cir. 1971) 436 ; Joslin v. Moseley (10th Cir. 1970) 420 F.2d 1204, 1205.² The District Court is without authority to order service of petitioner’s federal sentence in a state penal institution and any recommendation by it to that effect or even a declaration that the federal sentence shall run concurrently with a state sentence will be considered as pure “surplusage.” This is so because the power to designate the place of confinement of a federal prisoner rests exclusively in the Attorney General of the United States.³ And the District Court in this case fully recognized its want of power for it phrased its order in purely precatory terms.⁴ In exercising his power to determine the place of confinement for federal prisoners, the Attorney General is exercising a discretionary power, to be interfered with only if exercised arbitrarily or capriciously. Rodriquez-Sandoval v. United States (1st Cir. 1969) 409 F.2d 529, 532, cert. denied 414 U.S. 869, 94 S.Ct. 180, 38 L.Ed.2d 71; Lawrence v. Willingham (10th Cir. 1967) 373 F.2d 731, 732. There is no evidence that the Attorney General acted arbitrarily or capriciously in failing to transfer the petitioner to state custody on October 2. The most that the petitioner argues is that the Attorney General acted dilatorily and without dispatch. Assuming arguendo that dilatoriness in acting on the District Court’s recommendation could be considered an abuse of discretion on the part of the Attorney General, the record does not support any claim of dilatoriness. The petitioner himself was largely the author of the delay in effecting his transfer to state custody. For a time after his transfer to the federal prison in Atlanta, he expressed the desire to remain there in order to pursue available vocational training but not in the state institution. And even had the Attorney General been dilatory in transferring the petitioner to state custody, his dilatoriness would not be imputed to the state or require the state to abate the petitioner’s sentence to compensate therefor. The District Court properly dismissed this claim.

The claim for credit for the period between his state sentence and his federal sentence stands on a different footing; it has definite constitutional underpinnings. Had petitioner been able to make bond following his federal arraignment, it would have been possible for him to have commenced the service of his state sentence on May 24, 1972. In United States v. Gaines, supra, it was held that one who was unable to enter into federal custody in order to begin the service of his federal sentence because he lacked the funds to post bond in connection with a pretrial charge in the state court on which he was being held in state custody was entitled on constitutional grounds to credit on his federal sentence for the time spent in pretrial custody in the state court. The situation is reversed here but the analogy seems clear. To deny the petitioner credit for the time spent in pretrial federal custody, after sentence on the state offense, because of his inability to provide bail on his federal charge, it is persuasively argued by petitioner’s counsel in this Court, would be to force him to serve a greater state sentence because of his indigency. Absent some special or untoward circumstance, this would be an impermissible discrimination, violative of the petitioner’s constitutional rights as declared in Gaines.⁵ The petitioner should, it would seem, be entitled to credit on his state sentence for the time spent by him in the Portsmouth City Jail between May 24, 1972 and September 13, 1972, and we at the appellate level, it is urged, should grant it. Unfortunately, though, the petitioner did not raise this claim below and the District Court has had no opportunity to consider it. This cause is accordingly remanded to the District Court for the consideration of this additional claim, and, since the claim, if allowed, will accelerate the petitioner’s rights to release, consideration should be expedited in the District Court.

Affirmed in part and remanded.

1 . See 402 U.S. 1006, 91 S.Ct. 2195, 29 L.Ed.2d 428.

2 . The proposed new Federal Criminal Code provides that a federal sentence will run concurrently with a state sentence unless the sentencing court specifically provides otherwise. National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, Study Draft — Federal Criminal Code, § 3206(1) and (6) (1970).

3 . Section 4082(a), 18 U.S.C.; Hamilton v. Salter, supra, (361 F.2d at 581). The power has in turn been delegated by the Attorney General to the Bureau of Prisons, 28 C.F.R. § 0.96(c).

4 . The Bureau of Prisons normally follows the recommendation of the Court. Hamilton v. Salter, supra, (361 F.2d at 581). It did so in this case. As said, the delay in so doing was largely of the petitioner’s own making.

5 . See, also, United States v. Downey (8th Cir. 1972) 469 F.2d 1030, 1031-2; United States v. Sockel (D.C.Mo.1973) 368 F.Supp. 97, 99-100.