Hunter v. Facchine, 4411.

Decision Date16 April 1952
Docket NumberNo. 4411.,4411.
Citation195 F.2d 1007
PartiesHUNTER, Warden v. FACCHINE.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Eugene W. Davis, Ass't U. S. Atty., Topeka, Kan. (Lester Luther, U. S. Atty., Topeka, Kan., on the brief) for appellant.

Walter O. Cass, Denver, Colo., for appellee.

Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and HUXMAN and MURRAH, Circuit Judges.

HUXMAN, Circuit Judge.

Appellee was sentenced to a term of 4 years in the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. He sought release from custody, contending that he had served the required time. This appeal is taken from a judgment in his favor.

The question presented by this appeal is the method required in computing and crediting him with good time under 18 U.S. C.A. § 4161. So far as material, § 4161 provides that a prisoner, who has observed all the rules and has not been subject to punishment, shall be entitled in the case of a sentence of not less than 3 years and less than 5 years to a deduction of 7 days per month, "beginning with the day on which the sentence commences to run, to be credited as earned and computed monthly".1

Prior to the passage of this section, the Prison Bureau had set up an accounting system by which upon his entry into prison it credited an inmate with all the good time he could earn throughout his entire sentence. Thereafter, if he violated the prison rules, the prison authorities forfeited all or such part of this credited good time as they thought appropriate and proper under the circumstances of the case. Under this system, in the case of a 15 year sentence, if a violation of prison rule occurred one day after entry of his servitude, it was possible for the authorities to forfeit all good time the prisoner could earn and require him to serve the full 15 year sentence. Obviously such a prisoner would have no incentive for good behaviour thereafter. It was to correct this that persons, including the Bureau of Prisons, interested in the improvement of the prison system strongly recommended the change made in the revised section.

Thereafter the Bureau of Prisons revised its method of computing and crediting good time in what it no doubt thought was compliance with the revised section. It discontinued the system of crediting all good time to be earned by the prisoner upon entry of his servitude. Using the 4 year sentence in this case as an example, it adopted the following formula. It multiplied 48, the number of months of the sentence, by 7, the statutory...

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17 cases
  • Moreland v. Federal Bureau of Prisons
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas
    • April 1, 2005
    ...1959 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2518, 2518-19 (discussing 1959 amendment to § 4161 intended in part to reverse a 1952 court decision [Hunter v. Facchine, 195 F.2d 1007 (10th Cir.1952)] interpreting the statute as requiring GCT to be calculated based on time served rather than sentence At that time, Congr......
  • Williams v. Dewalt, No. CIV.A. AW-04-2732.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Maryland
    • December 29, 2004
    ...of the sentence as imposed by the court." H.R. Rep. 86-935 (Aug. 18, 1959), reprinted in 1959 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 2519. See Hunter v. Facchine, 195 F.2d 1007 (10th Cir.1952). This interpretation required model prisoners to serve longer periods of confinement than they would have under the previ......
  • BARBARA LANE STORES, INC. v. Brumley, 11430.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit
    • April 16, 1952
  • Howard v. United States
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit
    • January 5, 1960
    ...to serve only the good time to which he was actually entitled under § 4161 as codified in 1948 and as interpreted by Hunter v. Facchine, 10 Cir., 195 F.2d 1007, rather than the amount of good time he was credited with at the time of his conditional release. For the purposes of this appeal, ......
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