Michael Gary Barber, et al. v. J. E. Thomas, Warden (560 U.S. 474)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 7, 2010 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 560 U.S. 474 · 130 S. Ct. 2499
- Decided
- June 7, 2010
- Term
- October Term 2009
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. Federal sentencing law permits federal prison authorities to award prisoners credit against prison time as a reward for good behavior. 18 U. S. C. § 3624(b). Petitioners, two federal prisoners, challenge the method that the Federal Bureau of Prisons uses for calculating this “good time credit.” We conclude that the Bureau’s method reflects the most natural reading of the statute, and we reject petitioners’ legal challenge. I A A federal sentencing statute provides: “[A] prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year . . . may receive credit toward the service of the prisoner’s sentence, beyond the time served, of up to 54 days at the end of each year of the prisoner’s term of imprisonment, beginning at the end of the first year of the term .... [Cjredit for the last year or portion of a year of the term of imprisonment shall be prorated and credited within the last six weeks of the sentence.” § 3624(b)(1). The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) applies this statute using a methodology that petitioners in this case challenge as unlawful. In order to explain the BOP method, we shall use a simplified example that captures its essential elements. The unsimplified calculations described by the BOP in its policy statement, see App. 96-100, will reach approximately the same results as, and are essentially the mathematical…
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