The Supreme Court on Monday, November 2, hears Maxwell v. Dinis, which asks whether a federal prisoner who says the Bureau of Prisons is withholding First Step Act time credits can bring that claim in a habeas corpus petition to win an earlier move to a halfway house or home confinement.
The case, No. 25-5930, opens the court's November sitting. It has an unusual shape. The prisoner and the government agree the lower court got it wrong, so the justices invited a Washington lawyer, Brian W. Barnes, to brief and argue in defense of the ruling below, SCOTUSblog and the docket show.
The prisoner and his claim
William Maxwell was convicted in 2014 on counts tied to a scheme to take over a mortgage loan company and use its assets for personal gain, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, according to his merits brief. He is held at FCI Beaumont Low, a low security prison in Texas. The brief says he has no disciplinary infractions, the lowest risk rating, and steady work as a cook and a law library clerk.
The First Step Act of 2018 says prisoners who complete recidivism reduction programs and productive activities "shall earn time credits," and that the bureau "shall transfer eligible prisoners" with enough credits into prerelease custody or supervised release. Maxwell says the bureau failed to count some of his work and owes him "between 42 and 48 months" of credits. He began asking for transfer in March 2020 and filed his habeas petition in the Eastern District of Texas in February 2022.
How the Fifth Circuit ruled
The district court dismissed his petition because he had not exhausted prison grievance procedures. The Fifth Circuit affirmed on a different ground that neither the government nor the trial judge had raised. Under its "bright-line rule," a claim belongs in habeas only if winning would automatically entitle the prisoner to accelerated release. Because Maxwell wanted a halfway house or home confinement rather than freedom, the court said he had to sue some other way.
Three positions, one argument
Maxwell argues habeas has never been all or nothing. Courts have long used it to move prisoners to a lower level of custody, such as parole or bail, and the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Preiser v. Rodriguez treated release to parole as the core of habeas.
The government, defending the warden, agrees the claim belongs in habeas as the case comes to the court. Its brief says prerelease custody "differs from prison in fundamental ways," even though people there remain in legal custody.
Barnes, the court appointed lawyer, argues habeas covers only claims that would shorten or end physical detention, win bail or parole, or show the prisoner is held somewhere the sentence does not allow. A move to a halfway house, he argues, is still detention run by the Bureau of Prisons and is "materially different" from parole.
Our numbers
Maxwell's 20 year sentence is 240 months. The 42 to 48 months of credits he says he is owed would equal 17.5 to 20 percent of that sentence, by our arithmetic. His petition was filed in February 2022, so by argument day the dispute over where he serves that time has been in court for about four years and nine months, without any court deciding whether the bureau counted his credits correctly.
That is the practical stake. If the Fifth Circuit's rule stands, prisoners there who say they are owed credits must find another legal path, and the Fifth Circuit pointed to a Bivens damages suit. If the justices reverse, those prisoners can bring the claim in habeas, the traditional route for a person challenging custody. A decision is expected by the end of June.
For the other habeas case the court hears this week, see Supreme Court to Hear Texas Bid to Block Death Row Inmate's Late Intellectual Disability Claim. For another recent Supreme Court action involving the Fifth Circuit, read Supreme Court Leaves in Place a Ruling That Limited the Federal Felon Gun Ban.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
