(Download) "Ramsey v. Brennan" by United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Ramsey v. Brennan
- Author : United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- Release Date : January 29, 1989
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 52 KB
Description
POSNER, Circuit Judge Steven Lynn Ramsey, a federal prison inmate, claims that he should have received credit toward his prison sentence for the 96 days that he served in a halfway house before his criminal trial. Arrested by agents of the FBI for bank robbery and related crimes, Ramsey was released on bail on various conditions, including that he remain in St. Andrews Halfway House in Lexington, Kentucky until trial. He was later convicted and sentenced to 9 years in prison. He asked the warden of the prison in Wisconsin where he is confined to credit his time in the halfway house toward his prison sentence. The warden refused, and after exhausting his administrative remedies Ramsey brought this action under the habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. ร§ร§ 2241 et seq.; cf. United States v. Hornick, 815 F.2d 1156, 1160 (7th Cir. 1987). Federal law provides that the ""Attorney General shall give any [person sentenced to prison] credit toward service of his sentence for any days spent in custody in connection with the offense or acts for which sentence was imposed."" 18 U.S.C. ร§ 3568. To a normal English speaker, even to a legal English speaker, being forced to live in a halfway house is to be held ""in custody""; and the requirement of connection is satisfied here. Just the other day we affirmed in an unpublished order a judgment of conviction for escaping from a halfway house, under a statute which makes it a crime for anyone to escape or try to escape ""from the custody of the Attorney General or his authorized representative, or from any institution or facility in which he is confined by direction of the Attorney General."" 18 U.S.C. ร§ 751(a); United States v. Corcoran, 876 F.2d 106 (7th Cir. 1989). Finally, in Johnson v. Smith, 696 F.2d 1334 (11th Cir. 1983), on which Ramsey relies heavily, the Eleventh Circuit held that it is a violation of equal protection (the principle of equal protection of the laws was held in Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 98 L. Ed. 884, 74 S. Ct. 693 (1954), to be an implied term of the Fifth Amendment's due process clause) to deny credit for time spent in a halfway house before trial, since confinement in a halfway house after sentencing does not toll the period of one's sentence.