The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Nov. 2 in Maxwell v. Dinis about whether a federal inmate may use a habeas statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241, to contest the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ refusal to accelerate his transfer to a halfway house or home confinement.
Maxwell, a former attorney, was convicted at trial for his role in conspiring with a mob-related organization, La Costa Nostra, to take over a Texas-based mortgage-loan company, FirstPlus Financial Group, Inc., and drain it of its assets. As Maxwell neared the end of his sentence, he sought to contest the BOP’s calculation of good-time credits that would accelerate his transfer from prison to a halfway house or home confinement. The question for the court was whether Section 2241, which does not clearly spell out what claims may be brought but whose scope has largely been shaped by precedent, allows him to do so.
Maxwell’s attorney, Masha Hansford, pressed for a broad rule that habeas is available to an inmate like Maxwell who is asserting a right to a “distinct and lower level of custody.” But that position almost immediately encountered some pushback. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned “whether we really need to use this case to define every circumstance in which habeas is appropriate.” Hansford agreed that the court need not adopt a test that allows inmates to challenge all changes to the level of custody and was content to have the court resolve Maxwell’s case by applying a narrower test endorsed by the government that would permit an inmate to use habeas to challenge the denial of an accelerated transfer to parole or, as here, a halfway house or home confinement.
Justice Samuel Alito pressed Hansford on whether an inmate may use Section 2241 simply to dispute how BOP calculated good-time credits or whether the inmate must also show that any error in calculating would also entitle the inmate to accelerated transfer to a halfway house or home confinement. After Hansford replied that Maxwell met all the requirements for the transfer and only the calculation of good-time credits was at issue, Justice Neal Gorsuch followed up by pressing whether the court needs to say that an inmate could bring a habeas challenge about the calculation of good-time credits alone. Hansford replied that the court did not need to say a dispute over good-time credits alone would suffice for a federal inmate to bring a claim in Section 2241.
Turning to Hansford’s level-of-custody test, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that, in a prior case, Justice Antonin Scalia had referred to habeas as covering a “‘quantum change’ in the level of custody,” but Hansford was asking the court “to create new language, ‘materially less restrictive custody.’ Why don’t we stick to what we have?” Hansford agreed that the court need not broaden its test and that Maxwell’s requested transfer to a halfway house or home confinement amounted to such a quantum change.
Assistant to the Solicitor General Kevin J. Barber, arguing for the government, contended that “there’s no need to adopt” Maxwell’s “amorphous level-of-custody rule.” He explained that the court “has always made clear that habeas is available when your claim is seeking discharge from actual physical confinement in prison to a different kind of custody,” such as a halfway house or home confinement. Here, the government relied heavily on Preiser v. Rodriguez, which held that habeas supplies the sole avenue for a state inmate to challenge the denial of credit toward release on parole.
When Gorsuch pressed Barber on the source of the government’s rule and why an inmate’s transfer to solitary confinement or maximum security would not be covered, Barber pointed principally to history and tradition in the court’s habeas cases. Barber explained, “we don’t have any tradition of claims being recognized as habeas claims challenging just transfers within prison systems.”
Despite agreeing that Maxwell could bring his claim in Section 2241, the government argued that no court could actually grant him relief. Specifically, the government pointed to 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) and its terms barring courts from reviewing “a designation of a place of imprisonment under this subsection.” According to the government, service of a sentence in a halfway house or home confinement is “a designation of a place of imprisonment” governed by that statute.
But the government did not appear to have the votes to prevail on this argument, at least at the Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed Barber on whether that issue could be left for the lower court to decide on remand. Barber conceded that the court “absolutely could.” Sotomayor questioned Barber about whether the government is right that Section 3621(b) applies to Maxwell’s claim. But after Barber began responding, Justice Amy Coney Barrett reiterated Kavanaugh’s point that “we don’t have to get into any of this, right?” Barber again agreed.
Jackson pressed Barber on a separate point, that the BOP is expected to transfer Maxwell to a halfway house or home confinement in January 2027, which would soon make his claim moot. Jackson disputed why the court would revisit its decision to hear the case. Barber apologized for not pressing the Section 3621(b) issue or mootness in opposing certiorari, but said these factors spoke in favor of the court dismissing the case as improvidently granted.
The amicus, Brian W. Barnes, was appointed to argue in favor of the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that habeas is unavailable for Maxwell’s claim. When pressed by Justice Elena Kagan, Barnes agreed that habeas is available to “encompass a move from incarceration to parole,” as Preiser held. Kagan pointed out that “parole looks an awful lot like what’s going on here.”
The justices’ questions suggest that they are unlikely to limit Preiser and reject an analogy between Maxwell’s requested relief and the parole in that case. The justices also showed little appetite for reaching the government’s Section 3621(b) argument. How they would handle Maxwell’s expected release to a halfway house in January 2027 was less clear, but that circumstance could result in a speedier ruling.
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