US v. Mills, No. 06-2444. At first this looks like one of those silly victories for the government that they have been getting in other circuits, where they get to claim that a sentence is unreasonably low and the judges defer to the government’s view of how much of a person’s life should be spent rotting in jail. But, actually, the First does a better job, and shows that the District Court based a sentence on an erroneous factual finding regarding whether the defendant was currently imprisoned on the charge he was sentenced to. The record indicates that he was actual imprisoned on a state charge and had made his appearance pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum (see, the government likes habeas, too). The First then notes that he received credit for the time spent rotting in jail on his state sentence, so there wasn’t a reason to count it on his federal sentence. Based on prior caselaw, the First holds that “federal detainer is irrelevant to custody in relation to a state offense, credit is not available.”
Then, the First gets a little wacky. It says it has some “concern” and that the District court “should not have taken into account Mills's custody in its sentencing decision, but should have instead left the determination of Mills's eligibility for credit for time served to the Attorney General and the Bureau of Prisons.” But, it cites pre-Booker authority for this proposition, so it is unclear what the heck they mean.
I also wonder if the First would really be so willing to find a judge’s findings to be “erroneous” if it favored the defendant.
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