Ruffin v. McCune

414 F. Supp. 286, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15212
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedMay 6, 1976
DocketNo. 76-2-C3
StatusPublished

This text of 414 F. Supp. 286 (Ruffin v. McCune) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ruffin v. McCune, 414 F. Supp. 286, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15212 (D. Kan. 1976).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

THEIS, District Judge.

Petitioner moves this Court for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. He is presently incarcerated in the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, serving the remainder of a 13-year sentence after revocation of his mandatory release. Petitioner claims he is entitled to credit for time served upon an invalid federal sentence which delayed the service of the remainder of his present sentence. Respondent has answered, denying petitioner’s right to such credit on grounds that the intervening invalid sentence did not constitute custody in connection with the offense for which he is currently incarcerated; and that it was the Parole Board’s discretion not [287]*287to execute his parole revocation warrant until after his release from service of the invalid federal sentence. Respondent alleges that to allow petitioner credit for time served is to allow him to “bank” time for a subsequent offense.

The facts involved in this case are somewhat complex. In 1963 petitioner began serving a 13-year federal sentence, and on February 5,1971 he was released on mandatory release with 1,848 days of his sentence unserved. On April 4,1972, a parole violat- or’s warrant was issued by the Board of Parole alleging various charges, including: (1) carrying a concealed weapon on June 28, 1971, for which he was arrested by the State of Missouri with disposition pending; (3) carrying two concealed weapons on February 23,1972, for which he was charged by the State of Missouri, with disposition pending; and (4) unauthorized possession of firearms. This warrant was not served upon petitioner at that time, however. In January, 1973, petitioner was taken into federal custody for federal charges arising out of the incidents cited in the parole violator’s warrant; and upon trial and a jury verdict of guilty, petitioner was sentenced to an aggregate term of four years. On January 14, 1974, the Parole Board’s amended parole violator’s warrant was forwarded to the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, to be placed as a detainer against petitioner and to be executed upon release from the sentence then being served. On January 16, 1974, petitioner’s federal firearms conviction was reversed; and on February 20, 1974, an order was issued releasing petitioner. On February 22, 1974, immediately upon petitioner’s release, the Parole Board executed the parole violator’s warrant. Thereafter, petitioner’s parole was formally revoked, as set forth in the Order and Reasons of the Board of Parole dated June 18, 1974, based on charges (3) and (4) of the violator’s warrant. Petitioner had previously plead guilty and had served a sentence imposed upon him by a state court in St. Louis, Missouri, on the two counts of carrying a concealed weapon cited in charge (3).

Petitioner took administrative steps to receive credit for the time spent in federal prison upon an invalid sentence between the time the Parole Board issued the parole violator’s warrant and the time such warrant was executed. In September, 1975, the Bureau of Prisons granted him credit for the days sought. On December 5, 1975, however, the Acting General Counsel for the Bureau of Prisons wrote petitioner as follows:

“We reviewed your appeal in mid-September and felt that your request had merit since the violator warrant had been in existence throughout the time you were serving the invalid federal sentence and since the violator warrant had been issued for reasons other than the new federal charge. It was our observation that had you not been serving the invalid federal sentence you would have been taken into custody on the basis of the violator warrant and the violator term would have begun on January 18, 1973. However, since the U.S. Board of Parole has sole jurisdiction over execution of their warrants, we discussed the possibility of retroactively executing the violator warrant with a member of the Board’s staff, who agreed that this would be a proper solution. Since that time we have learned that the Board wishes to retain their option of deciding when the violator warrant should be, or should have been executed. For this reason, we regret to inform you that we, pursuant to the Board’s wishes, must reverse our previous decision to recompute your violator term as beginning on January 18, 1973. As a result, your violator term will be computed as beginning on February 22, 1974, as previously computed by the staff at Leavenworth.”

The Tenth Circuit has ruled on a case factually similar to this one in Goodwin v. Page, 418 F.2d 867 (1969). There, defendant Goodwin was sentenced to life imprisonment on a 1936 murder conviction; was paroled in 1961; and while on parole committed the crime of robbery. His parole was revoked in 1962 and he was returned to the penitentiary. In 1963, upon trial and [288]*288conviction for robbery, he was sentenced to five years, to run consecutively to his prior sentence. The 1936 conviction was found invalid by a federal court in 1969. The respondent contended the five year sentence, imposed as consecutive, began to run only from the date the 1936 conviction was declared legally invalid. The Court disagreed, stating (at page 868):

“Where a petitioner is serving a sentence which is held void, a later consecutive sentence based on a different crime runs independently.”

The above Tenth Circuit case was cited in a Fifth Circuit case directly on point, Meadows v. Blackwell, 433 F.2d 1298 (5th Cir. 1970). In that case a federal parolee was arrested for a Dyer Act violation and a parole violator warrant was issued but not executed until after a conviction under the Dyer Act was reversed. The Court stated:

“It is clear to this Court that appellant is entitled to the relief sought. Had it not been for the intervention of the invalid Dyer Act sentence, the commencement of service of the remainder of his earlier sentence would have been advanced, (citations deleted.) It is unnecessary for us to determine whether the appellant should be credited with jail time from March 5, 1968, the date of his arrest, or from October 16, 1968, the date of the invalid conviction, since he is entitled to immediate unconditional release in either case.
“We do not intend that this opinion be interpreted as standing for the principle that prisoners may ‘bank’ time. Rather, we intend that it be restricted to cases strictly within the factual situation here involved, i. e., time served on an invalid sentence at a time when a presently existing sentence could have been served.”
(p. 1299.)

Respondent alleges the Mississippi District Court’s decision in Mize v. United States, 323 F.Supp. 792 (D.Miss.1971), indicates the Fifth Circuit’s withdrawal from the position taken in Meadows v. Blackwell, supra. The Court notes that Mize, however, concerns an invalid state sentence, which clearly differentiates Mize from the present case, where the federal government at all relevant times had custody of .the petitioner. Petitioner does not seek credit for the time served in state prison upon a plea to charges factually related to the invalid federal firearms convictions.

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414 F. Supp. 286, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15212, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ruffin-v-mccune-ksd-1976.