1/19/06
FAMM files friend of the Court brief in Supreme Court on good time issue
On January 18, 2006, FAMM filed an amicus brief (click here to download the brief) asking the Supreme Court to review O’ Donald v. Johns, No. 05-8504, because the case, challenging the Bureau of Prisons’ calculation of good time credit, “presents a question of great practical and legal significance.” FAMM has long argued that the BOP misconstrues federal law when it calculates the 54 days credit prisoners may earn for every year of their term of imprisonment based not on the sentence imposed but on the time the prisoner serves. This bad math results in a loss of 7 days a year of freedom to every eligible prisoner. FAMM told the Court that the issue presented by O’Donald “directly affects the length of the sentences that will be served by well over 150,000 prisoners in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.”
FAMM, and fellow amici, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the National Association of Federal Defenders (NAFD) have worked together to raise the issue and secure pro bono counsel to represent prisoners filing habeas corpus petitions. While several lower courts have granted habeas corpus relief, all the circuit courts of appeals (with the exception of the Tenth Circuit which has not considered the issue yet) have rejected the arguments. Prisoners have asked the Supreme Court to grant certiorari (review) in three of those decisions from the Third (O’Donald v. Johns), Fifth (Moreland v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 05-8268) and Ninth (Mujahid v. Daniels, No. 05-8678) Circuits.
FAMM wishes to thank David A. Lewis, a federal appellate defender in New York, for authoring our amicus brief. Mr. Lewis also represents a prisoner in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals who is seeking reconsideration of that Court’s adverse decision.