Ayash v. U.S. Bureau of Prisons
| Docket Number | 21-cv-2110 (CRC) |
| Decision Date | 17 August 2022 |
| Parties | CHRISTOPHER AYASH, Plaintiff, v. U.S. BUREAU OF PRISONS, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) has long had statutory authority to allow inmates to serve the tail end of their sentences in home confinement in order to ease their reentry into the community. In the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”), Congress gave BOP expanded discretion, in appropriate cases, to release inmates to home confinement earlier in their sentences.
Plaintiff Christopher Ayash, a federal inmate incarcerated in Kentucky claims in this suit that BOP has adopted a policy of denying home confinement under the CARES Act to inmates, like him who were convicted of a crime of violence. This policy, Ayash contends, marks a shift from BOP's prior policy of releasing inmates to home confinement without regard to their offense. Ayash further claims that BOP violated the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) by adopting this purported policy without engaging in notice-and-comment rulemaking.
BOP moves to dismiss Ayash's complaint for lack of jurisdiction, improper venue, and failure to state a claim. Asserting jurisdiction but concurring that Ayash fails to state a claim, the Court will grant the motion on that ground.
An overlapping series of statutes and BOP Program Statements govern the release of inmates to home confinement.[1] First, 18 U.S.C. § 3624(c) gives BOP the authority to place a federal prisoner on home confinement for the last ten percent of his sentence, up to six months.
It provides:
The Director of the Bureau of Prisons shall, to the extent practicable, assure that a prisoner serving a term of imprisonment spends a portion of the final months of that term (not to exceed 12 months), under conditions that will afford that prisoner a reasonable opportunity to adjust to and prepare for the reentry of that prisoner into the community. The authority provided by this subsection may be used to place a prisoner in home confinement for the shorter of 10 percent of the term of imprisonment of that prisoner or 6 months.
In 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Pub. L. No. 116-136, 134 Stat. 281 (2020) (“CARES Act”). One of its provisions was designed to reduce the federal prison population during the pandemic by giving BOP discretion to place inmates on home confinement without regard to the time and percent limitation in § 3624(c). In particular, the CARES Act provides that:
[D]uring the covered emergency period, if the Attorney General finds that emergency conditions will materially affect the functioning of the Bureau, the Director of the Bureau may lengthen the maximum amount of time for which the Director is authorized to place a prisoner in home confinement under the first sentence of section 3624(c)(2) of title 18, United States Code, as the Director determines appropriate.
CARES Act § 12003(b)(2), 134 Stat. at 516; see Compl. ¶¶ 7-9.
BOP implements § 3624(c)(2) through its Program Statement on Home Confinement, PS 7321.01, which states that “[a]ll inmates referred to community corrections are eligible to be considered for home confinement placement.” PS 7321.01 at 3 (last revised Aug. 1, 2016). Under PS 7321.01, it is the responsibility of a BOP Community Corrections Manager (“CCM”) to “ensure that each appropriate inmate is placed on home confinement as soon as otherwise eligible,” and “[o]nly [a] CCM may approve home confinement.” Id. at 3, 5.[2]
Separately, BOP Program Statement 5162.05, titled “Categorization of Offenses,” lists offenses BOP considers to be crimes of violence as that term is used in various statutes. PS 5162.05 provides that, “as an exercise of discretion vested in the [BOP] Director . . . an inmate may be denied program benefits . . . such as early release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e) . . . if he or she was convicted of an offense listed in . . . this section.” PS 5162.05 at 1, 8 (last revised Mar. 16, 2009).
Ayash claims that BOP, in using its expanded authority under the CARES Act, adopted a national policy or practice of denying home confinement to inmates convicted of a crime of violence listed in PS 5162.05. Compl. ¶ 9. As far as the Court is aware, however, BOP has not issued any program statement addressing expanded home confinement under the CARES Act.
BOP moves to dismiss Ayash's complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, improper venue, and failure to state a claim.
On a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, “the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence.” Tex. Child.'s Hosp. v. Azar, 315 F.Supp.3d 322, 329 (D.D.C. 2018) (citing Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992)). In making this determination, the court is not limited to “the allegations of the complaint,” but “may consider such materials outside the pleadings as it deems appropriate.” Transp. Trades Dep't, AFL-CIO v. Nat'l Mediation Bd., 530 F.Supp.3d 64, 69 (D.D.C. 2021) (citations omitted).
To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6), “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). When ruling on a 12(b)(6) motion, a court may consider only “the facts alleged in the complaint, documents attached as exhibits or incorporated by reference in the complaint, and matters about which the Court may take judicial notice.” Daniels v. United States, 947 F.Supp.2d 11, 17 (D.D.C. 2013) (quoting Gustave-Schmidt v. Chao, 226 F.Supp.2d 191, 196 (D.D.C. 2002)).
In evaluating a motion to dismiss under either Rule 12(b)(1) or 12(b)(6), the Court must “treat the complaint's factual allegations as true and must grant plaintiff ‘the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.'” Sparrow v. United Air Lines, Inc., 216 F.3d 1111, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (internal citation omitted) (quoting Schuler v. United States, 617 F.2d 605, 608 (D.C. Cir. 1979)). Nevertheless, the Court need not accept inferences drawn by the plaintiff if those inferences are unsupported by facts alleged in the complaint, nor must the Court accept plaintiff's legal conclusions. Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (Rule 12(b)(6)); Food & Water Watch, Inc. v. Vilsack, 808 F.3d 905, 913 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (Rule 12(b)(1)).
BOP contends that the Court lacks jurisdiction over Ayash's complaint because, at its core, the complaint amounts to a request to shorten the duration of Ayash's confinement, and a writ of habeas corpus is the exclusive remedy to achieve that result. Mot. to Dismiss at 6-7. Because Ayash is required to bring his case under habeas, BOP argues, neither jurisdiction nor venue lies in this Court, as “[a] federal court can only issue a writ of habeas corpus if (1) the petitioner is physically confined within the court's territorial jurisdiction, and (2) the court has personal jurisdiction over the petitioner's immediate custodian.” Han v. Lynch, 223 F.Supp.3d 95, 109 (D.D.C. 2016).
The Court disagrees. Federal prisoners are required to bring a habeas action if success on the merits of their claim would “necessarily imply the invalidity of confinement or shorten its duration.” Davis v. U.S. Sent'g Comm'n, 716 F.3d 660, 666 (D.C. Cir. 2013). In Davis, the D.C. Circuit held that a federal prisoner could bring an equal protection challenge to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's calculation of the base offense levels for crimes involving crack cocaine without resorting to habeas. Id. at 662, 665. The Circuit reasoned that, even if the plaintiff succeeded, it “would do no more than allow him to seek a sentence reduction, which the district court retain[ed] the discretion to deny,” and, as a result, success on the merits did not “necessarily imply the invalidity of confinement or shorten its duration.” Id. at 666.
So too here. Ayash seeks a declaratory judgment that BOP violated the APA by failing to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking before adopting a purportedly new home confinement policy. Compl. ¶¶ 17-19. A declaratory judgment that BOP violated the APA would not definitively impact Ayash's sentence-indeed, Ayash does not allege that he requested, or was denied, home confinement. Even if he obtained the relief he seeks, BOP could adopt the same alleged policy through notice and comment, and would retain the discretion to deny Ayash home confinement in any event. See United States v. Orji, 486 F.Supp.3d 398, 403 (D.D.C. 2020) () (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). As in Davis, success on the merits would do no more than allow Ayash to seek home confinement placement. Davis, 716 F.3d at 666.[3] Therefore, Ayash does not have to proceed under habeas and the Court has jurisdiction to consider the merits of Ayash's claim.
BOP next argues that Ayash fails to state a claim under the APA because the policy he challenges is exempt from the APA's notice-and-comment requirement. As a general matter, section 553 of the APA requires agencies “to afford notice of a proposed rulemaking and an...
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