Zakiya v. Reno

• Decision Date: 04 May 1999
• Docket Number: No. Civ.A. 98-1516-AM.,Civ.A. 98-1516-AM.
• Citation: 52 F.Supp.2d 629
• Parties: Jabari ZAKIYA, Petitioner, v. Janet RENO, U.S. Attorney General, Kathleen Hawk, Director, U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia

52 F.Supp.2d 629

Jabari ZAKIYA, Petitioner, v. Janet RENO, U.S. Attorney General, Kathleen Hawk, Director, U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Respondents.

No. Civ.A. 98-1516-AM.

United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division.

May 4, 1999.

Mary E. Blevins-Cox, Washington, DC, Thomas Ruffin, Jr., Washington, DC, for plaintiff.

Jeri K. Somers, Asst. U.S. Atty., U.S. Attorney's Office, Alexandria, VA, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BRINKEMA, District Judge.

Before the Court is petitioner's Third Amended Petition for Writ of Mandamus and Habeas Corpus. Petitioner's motion presents the novel question of whether, under 18 U.S.C.A. § 3624(e) (Supp.1999), the Bureau of Prisons may continue the incarceration of a person who has served his entire sentence but who has failed to sign paperwork regarding a payment schedule for his criminal fine.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On February 18, 1994, following his federal convictions for tax evasion¹ and failure to file income tax returns,² petitioner Douglas W. Ross a/k/a Jabari Zakiya (Zakiya) was sentenced in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland to a sixteen-month term of imprisonment, a $25,000.00 fine, three years of supervised release, and a $200.00 special assessment. Zakiya self-reported to FCI Morgantown, located in West Virginia, to begin his sentence on January 5, 1995. His sixteen-month sentence should have ended on May 5, 1996. It is undisputed that, pursuant to calculations under 18 U.S.C.A. § 3624(a) and (b), Zakiya's administrative release date with full good-time credit was February 29, 1996. See Resp.Ex. 1, Decl. of Aaron Nixon, Jr., Acting Inmate Systems Manager, FCI Petersburg, VA.

On July 26, 1995, as part of their standard pre-release procedure, prison officials presented Zakiya with a form captioned, "Installment Schedule Agreement for Unpaid Fines" ("Agreement"), see Resp.Ex. 1, Att. 4, which states:

I agree to pay, while under supervised release, the remaining balance on any fine relative to the offense under which I am committed.... I also understand that failure to agree to adhere to this installment schedule may delay or prevent my release from incarceration.

Zakiya refused to sign the Agreement, and has repeatedly refused to sign the Agreement since then.

Zakiya, who is a former employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), considers himself a "political prisoner." He believes that the tax laws of the United States "lack[] legitimacy," see Petit. 3rd Amended Petition at ¶ 41, and he has "urged black people of African descent (including those in what was called the `Progressive African Liberation Movement') to organize against federal tax policies, which, in his belief financed the racist and class-bigoted oppression of the poor and of people of color in the United States." Id. at ¶ 6. According to his attorney, Zakiya's unwillingness to sign the Agreement is motivated by the same attitudes about the government's authority to collect money from him.

Because he has refused to sign the Agreement, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has not released Zakiya from custody. See Resp.Br. at 2. On March 8, 1998, Zakiya was transferred to FCI Petersburg, located within the Eastern District of Virginia, where Zakiya remains confined pursuant to 18 U.S.C.A. § 3624(e). He has now remained in custody for three years longer than the sentence imposed on him, and in another eight months, his incarceration will exceed the statutory maximum for the offenses for which he was convicted.

Section 3624(e) provides that:

No prisoner shall be released on supervision unless such prisoner agrees to adhere to an installment schedule, not to exceed two years except in special circumstances, to pay for any fine imposed for the offense committed by such prisoner.

Based on this statutory mandate, the BOP explained its policy as follows:

In accord with 18 U.S.C. section 3624(e), any inmate who has a term of supervised release and a fine relative to the offense under which he or she was committed, must agree to adhere to an installment schedule to pay any remaining balance on this fine while under release supervision. Any inmate who refuses to comply with Section 3624(e) must remain in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.

Bureau of Prisons Program Statement 5380.05, Sec. 5.a.(5), Financial Responsibility Program, Inmate (December 22, 1995), cited in Ross v. Thompson, 927 F.Supp. 956, 957-58 (N.D.W.Va.1996) (emphasis in original). The BOP directs that:

The prisoner shall not be released on supervision and shall remain confined unless the prisoner pays the fine in full, has executed an installment schedule approved by the court, or agrees to adhere to an installment schedule.... Every effort possible should be undertaken to assure that the prisoner is not confined past the release date any longer than necessary.

Bureau of Prisons Program Statement No. 5880.28, Sentence Computation Manual

(CCCA of 1984) (February 21, 1993), cited in Ross, 927 F.Supp. at 958.

According to the respondents, "Zakiya can be released from FCI Petersburg ... to supervised release at any time he chooses by contacting his unit case manager or Inmate Systems Management staff and signing the Agreement." Resp.Br. at 2. While this statement is certainly correct, the issue before us is whether the BOP has the authority, in the face of such irrational recalcitrance by a prisoner, to extend an inmate's sentence indefinitely. Before we can address the merits of this case, we must first address its tortured procedural history.

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Litigation # 1

On March 25, 1996, after his administrative release date had passed but while the full sentence had not been served, Zakiya, who was then housed in an FCI in that district, filed his first pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 2241 (Supp.1994) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. See Ross, 927 F.Supp. at 957; Resp.Ex. 3, Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. On May 1, 1996, the district court held that Zakiya's case was governed by the clear language of § 3624(e), and that he could not be released until he signed the Agreement. See Ross, 927 F.Supp. at 958. On June 4, 1996, Zakiya appealed that decision to the Fourth Circuit. See Resp.Ex. 4, Informal Brief. Neither court addressed the issue of whether the BOP could hold Zakiya past May 5, 1996.

According to respondents, while Zakiya's first appeal was pending, he filed another informal pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Northern District of West Virginia. See Resp.Br. at 8. On November 22, 1996, that petition was dismissed without prejudice on the grounds that § 2244(a) prohibits successive habeas filings without authorization by the court of appeals. See id.³ On December 20, 1996, Zakiya filed an application to file a successive petition with the Fourth Circuit, docketed as Appeal 96-670. On January 14, 1997, the Fourth Circuit, citing § 2444, denied Zakiya's application to file a successive petition. See Resp.Ex. 7, In Re: Zakiya, No. 96-670, Order (4th Cir. Jan. 14, 1997). On the same day, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's opinion in Ross v. Thompson, 927 F.Supp. 956 (N.D.W.Va.1996) by denying Zakiya relief under § 2241 and finding no reversible error. See Zakiya v. Thompson, 129 F.3d 118, 1997 WL 693563 (4th Cir.1997) (unpublished) (per curiam).

Litigation # 2

On January 8, 1997, while the litigation in West Virginia was proceeding, Zakiya filed another habeas petition pursuant to § 2241 in the district court for the District of Columbia. See Resp.Br. at 9. The district court ordered the case transferred to the Northern District of West Virginia, where Zakiya was confined.⁴ Thus, the case was transferred to the Northern District of West Virginia, where the case was docketed as CA-1:98-CV-27. On February 11, 1998, the district court ordered petitioner to show cause why his petition should not be dismissed because the court had already ruled adversely on the matter. See Resp.Br. at 9-10. Before he could respond, Zakiya was transferred to FCI Petersburg, within the Eastern District of Virginia. Thus, on March 13, 1998, Zakiya filed a motion to transfer the case to this Court, and that motion was granted on March 18, 1998.

On April 21, 1998, without considering the merits of his claim, we ordered that Zakiya's petition be dismissed as a successive petition pursuant to § 2244(a). See Zakiya v. Hawk, Civil A. No. 98-468, Order (E.D.Va. April 21, 1998). Zakiya's motion to reconsider was denied on May 28, 1998. See Zakiya v. Hawk, Civil A. No. 98-468, Order (E.D.Va. May 28, 1998). On March 25, 1999, the Fourth Circuit summarily affirmed our denial of Zakiya's motion to reconsider. See Zakiya v. Hawk, 1999 WL 162984 (4th Cir. Mar. 25, 1999). None of these opinions addressed the issue of whether the BOP could continue to hold Zakiya past the expiration of his judicially imposed sentence.

Litigation # 3

Parallel to the District of Columbia habeas litigation, which had been transferred to our district, Zakiya filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the D.C. district court on June 27, 1997. On May 18, 1998, now with the assistance of counsel, Zakiya filed an Amended Petition for a Writ of Mandamus and a Second Amended Petition for a Writ of Mandamus. On July 7, 1998, those petitions were transferred to this court.

Despite these various lawsuits and court decisions, no court has ever addressed the merits of Zakiya's claim in the posture the case finds itself in today. When the district court in the Northern District of West Virginia issued its opinion in this case, it did so before May 5, 1996. See Ross, 927 F.Supp. at 956 (opinion published on May 1, 1996). In fact, the district court simply quoted § 3624(e) and concluded that the BOP had authority to continue holding Zakiya, past what was at that point his administrative release date. The...