Clayton Crowe v. United States
430 F. App'x 484
6th Cir.
2011
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Clayton P. CROWE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of america, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 09-6508.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

July 18, 2011.

484

BEFORE: SUTTON and WHITE, Circuit Judges; and STAFFORD, District Judge.*

* The Honorable William H. Stafford, Jr., Senior United States District Judge for the Northern District of Florida, sitting by designation.

PER CURIAM.

The petitioner-appellant, Clayton Crowe, appeals from the district court‘s judgment denying his petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. We AFFIRM.

Crowe is currently serving a sixty-year sentence in federal prison. Because he suffers from heart and kidney ailments, Crowe asked the Director of the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP“) to file a motion in federal court seeking a compassionate release as permitted under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). The BOP denied his request. After pursuing administrative remedies without success, Crowe filed a petition—styled as a § 2241 petition—in the district court, seeking an order requiring the BOP to file a motion for compassionate release with the sentencing court in North Carolina. The district court correctly determined that § 2241 does not provide subject matter jurisdiction over Crowe‘s petition. The district court also correctly determined that, even if viewed as a request for review of agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701-706, Crowe‘s petition lacks merit because federal courts have no authority to review or countermand the BOP‘s decision not to seek a compassionate release for an inmate. Crowe filed a timely appeal to this court.

The BOP has the authority to seek a modification of a prisoner‘s sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), which provides that a federal court “may not modify a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed except that ... in any case ... the court, upon motion of the Director of the [BOP], may reduce the term of imprisonment ... if it finds that ... extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction.” Id. (emphasis added). The statute places no limits on the BOP‘s authority to seek or not seek a sentence reduction on behalf of a prisoner, nor does it define—or place any limits on—what “extraordinary and compelling reasons” might warrant such a reduction. The BOP, in other words, has broad discretion in its decision to move the court for a sentence modification under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).1

Based on this broad grant of discretion, a number of courts have determined that the BOP‘s decision regarding whether or not to file a motion for compassionate release is judicially unreviewable. See (holding that the BOP‘s decision whether to seek a compassionate release under the predecessor to § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) was unreviewable); (same); (same); (dismissing as unreviewable prisoner‘s § 2241 request for an order directing the BOP to move for early release under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i)); (same); see also (holding that the district courts lack “jurisdiction to sua sponte grant compassionate release” and that “[a] district court may not modify a defendant‘s federal sentence based on the defendant‘s ill health, except upon a motion from the Director of the Bureau of Prisons“). Consistent with these decisions, we hold that a federal court lacks authority to review a decision by the BOP to not seek a compassionate release for an inmate under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).

The judgment of the district court denying Crowe‘s petition for writ of habeas corpus is AFFIRMED.

Notes

1
Crowe argues, on various grounds, that the breadth of discretion granted to the BOP by § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) is unconstitutional. Crowe‘s arguments in this regard are frivolous and we decline to address them.
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