Ruggiano v. Reish

• Decision Date: 19 September 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-3703.,01-3703.
• Parties: Anthony RUGGIANO, Jr., Appellant, v. R.M. REISH, Warden.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

307 F.3d 121

Anthony RUGGIANO, Jr., Appellant, v. R.M. REISH, Warden.

No. 01-3703.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued May 21, 2002.

Filed September 19, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Linda S. Sheffield, (argued), Atlanta, GA, for appellant.

Martin C. Carlson, United States Attorney, Theodore B. Smith, III (argued), Assistant United States Attorney, Harrisburg, PA, for appellee.

BEFORE: BECKER, Chief Judge, GREENBERG, Circuit Judge, and BARZILAY, Judge, U.S. Court of International Trade.^*

OPINION OF THE COURT

BECKER, Chief Judge.

This habeas appeal requires us to determine whether the Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") of the United States Department of Justice has accurately computed the amount of time petitioner Anthony Ruggiano, Jr. must serve on his federal sentence. In early 1998, Ruggiano was sentenced to 112 months in federal prison by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Roettger, J.) ("the sentencing court") after he pleaded guilty to federal charges of racketeering. At the time, Ruggiano was still serving a 2-4-year sentence on an unrelated state (New York) conviction for gambling. This appeal turns on whether (and to what extent) the sentencing court intended Ruggiano's federal sentence to run concurrently with his state sentence, as a court is permitted to in certain instances under federal law and the Sentencing Guidelines. See 18 U.S.C. § 3584; U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3.

At the sentencing proceeding, Judge Roettger orally declared that he thought it appropriate "to go ahead and recommend that [Ruggiano's state sentence] be served concurrently and that he receive credit for the amount of time that he served there." [A43.] Then, in his written judgment, he recited that Ruggiano's sentence was "to run concurrent with State sentence. Defendant to receive credit for time served." [A47.] As will appear, fourteen months served on the state sentence is the time at issue. The BOP interpreted the court's statements granting the defendant "credit for time served" on his state sentence as merely a nonbinding recommendation which the BOP was at liberty to — and did in fact — ignore. The BOP, therefore, computed Ruggiano's 112-month federal sentence without any reduction for the time served on his state sentence.

Ruggiano filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania to challenge this determination but the Court denied relief, agreeing with the BOP that even if the sentencing court intended for its recommendation to be binding upon the BOP, that court had no authority under the relevant statutes or under the Sentencing Guidelines to credit Ruggiano for time served on his state conviction. We disagree. First, we conclude that the sentencing court did have authority under U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3 to adjust Ruggiano's sentence for time served on his state sentence in a way that is binding on the BOP. Second, we conclude that although the BOP does have exclusive authority to grant prisoners "credit" as that term is used in 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b), the type of "credit" granted to Ruggiano here was of a fundamentally different character, and was well within the authority of the sentencing court.

Third, we believe that the sentencing judge's oral and written remarks indicate that he intended to exercise his authority to adjust Ruggiano's sentence to account for the time served on the state sentence. The judge's oral statement that he would "go ahead and recommend" such an adjustment was not merely precatory, as the BOP submits. Rather, by saying that he would "go ahead and recommend," the sentencing judge stated orally what it was that he intended to do in his final sentence, and, as evidenced by the subsequent written judgment, he did exactly what he said he would: grant the defendant "credit for time served" on his state sentence.

Finally, we are unpersuaded by the BOP's contention that the sentencing judge's actions violated the legal precedents of the jurisdiction in which he sat — that of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, or that such a putative violation would change the result. Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment and remand the case to the District Court with instructions to grant Ruggiano's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and to direct the BOP to credit him with the fourteen months served on his state sentence before entering federal custody.

I. Facts and Procedural History

On November 7, 1996 Ruggiano was sentenced by the state of New York to imprisonment for two to four years for the crime of promoting illegal gambling. Just over a month later, on December 16, 1996, Ruggiano was indicted by a federal grand jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida for unrelated racketeering offenses. In January 1997, federal authorities took Ruggiano out of state custody in New York and placed him in federal custody pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum.¹ On August 22, 1997, Ruggiano pled guilty before the Florida District Court to conspiracy to engage in racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d). As part of the plea agreement, Ruggiano expressly reserved the right "to have the instant sentence run concurrent with the state sentence which the defendant is presently serving." Plea Agreement at 3, ¶ 7. [A34.]

During the sentencing hearing on January 14, 1998, Ruggiano's attorney stated the following to the court:

Another housekeeping matter, your Honor, is he is presently serving a state sentence in New York. And part of our plea agreement is a paragraph that says the government will not oppose us seeking leave of the Court to sentence him concurrently with his state sentence.

And I talked about that before the sentencing today with Mr. Berg from the probation department. And under 5G [of the Sentencing Guidelines] you do have the authority to do that, your Honor. You can sentence Mr. Ruggiano concurrently with the state sentence.

He is going to serve a long sentence, we know that, probably longer than any other defendant or as long as any of the defendants that you are going to sentence.

And he wasn't at the top [of the racketeering scheme.] He was somewhere in the middle. And that is reflected by where they found his role in the offense.

And because of that I would ask that you consider sentencing him concurrently with the case in New York and that you also consider giving him the low end.

[A39-40.]

The court did not immediately respond, and shortly thereafter declared merely that Ruggiano would be sentenced to 112 months in prison to be followed by a 3-year supervised release. After the court finished reciting Ruggiano's sentence, it asked counsel if either had objection, to which Ruggiano's attorney responded by reminding the court of Ruggiano's request that the court "consider ruling that this [the federal] sentence be concurrent with the state sentence under 5G and —"

The court interrupted Ruggiano's counsel and stated:

It doesn't sound as if he has much time to go on the state sentence. But I think it makes sense to go ahead and recommend that it be served concurrently and that he receive credit for the amount of time he has served there.

[A43.]

In its written judgment issued that same day, the court restated Ruggiano's sentence:

The defendant is hereby committed to the custody of the United States Bureau of Prisons to be imprisoned for a term of 112 months. Sentence imposed to run concurrent with State sentence. Defendant to receive credit for time served.

[A47.] Neither party appealed the sentencing order to the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

On January 30, 1998, the federal authorities returned Ruggiano to New York state custody where he proceeded to serve the remainder of his state sentence. On November 15, 1998, Ruggiano was paroled to federal custody and he has remained in federal custody at the Federal Correctional Institution in Schuykill, Pennsylvania (FCI—Schuykill) since then.

Upon entering federal custody, the BOP, pursuant to its statutory duty, calculated the beginning and end dates of Ruggiano's sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3621(a) ("A person who has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment ... shall be committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons until the expiration of the term imposed."). In doing so, the BOP did not credit Ruggiano for the time between 11/7/96 and 1/97, during which he was serving his state sentence in a New York prison. Neither did the BOP credit Ruggiano for the time between 1/1/97 and 1/14/98 during which he was still serving his state sentence but was being "borrowed" by the federal authorities pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum. See supra note 1. Because these 14 months were not spent in custody in fulfillment of Ruggiano's federal sentence, but rather constituted time spent in custody in fulfillment of his state sentence, the BOP was not required to credit Ruggiano this time under § 3585(b), which mandates that the BOP "credit" toward the defendant's sentence "any time he has spent in official custody prior to the date the sentence commences ... as a result of the offense for which the sentence was imposed" — i.e., the time a defendant spends in prison between arrest and sentencing. See Rios v. Wiley, 201 F.3d 257, 272-73 (3d Cir.2000) (concluding that credit is not allowed under § 3585(b) for time served that has already been credited against defendant's state sentence).

Ruggiano, however, contends that the sentence entered by the Florida sentencing court already gave him credit for the 14 months served on his state conviction (from 11/7/96 to 1/14/98). In other words, Ruggiano avers that, in view of Judge Roettger's declaration of a sentencing order with credit, he was sentenced to 112 months minus the time served on the state conviction (14 months), and it was from this base (98 months) that the BOP should have...