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    United States vs. Wilson GR No. 90-1745 March 24, 1992

    Uploaded by

    Karl Rigo Andrino
    The Supreme Court held that under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b), which governs credit for time served, the Attorney General through the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and not the district court is responsible for calculating credit for time served prior to sentencing. The Court found that the language and structure of § 3585(b) indicate the calculation must occur after the sentence has begun, which the district court is unable to do at sentencing. Additionally, having the BOP make the calculation is consistent with prior practice and ensures the BOP knows how much time remains on the sentence.

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    United States vs. Wilson GR No. 90-1745 March 24, 1992

    Uploaded by

    Karl Rigo Andrino
    57 views2 pages
    The Supreme Court held that under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b), which governs credit for time served, the Attorney General through the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and not the district court is responsible for calculating credit for time served prior to sentencing. The Court found that the language and structure of § 3585(b) indicate the calculation must occur after the sentence has begun, which the district court is unable to do at sentencing. Additionally, having the BOP make the calculation is consistent with prior practice and ensures the BOP knows how much time remains on the sentence.

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    UNITED STATES VS. WILSON GR NO. 90-1745 MARCH 24, 1992

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    The Supreme Court held that under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b), which governs credit for time served, the Attorney General through the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and not the district court is responsible for calculating credit for time served prior to sentencing. The Court found that the language and structure of § 3585(b) indicate the calculation must occur after the sentence has begun, which the district court is unable to do at sentencing. Additionally, having the BOP make the calculation is consistent with prior practice and ensures the BOP knows how much time remains on the sentence.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    57 views2 pages

    United States vs. Wilson GR No. 90-1745 March 24, 1992

    Uploaded by

    Karl Rigo Andrino
    The Supreme Court held that under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b), which governs credit for time served, the Attorney General through the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and not the district court is responsible for calculating credit for time served prior to sentencing. The Court found that the language and structure of § 3585(b) indicate the calculation must occur after the sentence has begun, which the district court is unable to do at sentencing. Additionally, having the BOP make the calculation is consistent with prior practice and ensures the BOP knows how much time remains on the sentence.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

    Syllabus

    UNITED STATES v. WILSON
    CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

    No. 90-1745. Argued January 15, 1992 — Decided March 24, 1992


    In sentencing respondent Wilson to prison for violating the Hobbs Act,
    the District Court denied his request for credit under 18 U.S.C. §
    3585(b) for the time he had spent in presentence detention by
    Tennessee authorities. After a state trial court credited such time
    against his prison term for state law convictions, the Court of Appeals
    reversed the District Court's ruling, holding that he had a right to
    federal credit and that the District Court should have awarded it to
    him.
    Held: It is the Attorney General who computes the amount of the §
    3585(b) credit after the defendant has begun to serve his sentence.
    Pp. 2-7.
    (a) Effective in 1987, § 3585(b) — which specifies, inter alia, that "[a]
    defendant shall be given credit toward [his] term of imprisonment for
    any time he has spent in official detention prior to the date the
    sentence commences," if such time "has not been credited against
    another sentence" (emphasis added) — replaced a statute which had
    provided, among other things, that "[t]he Attorney General shall give
    any such person credit" (emphasis added). Under the predecessor
    statute, the Attorney General, through the Bureau of Prisons (BOP),
    computed the amount of credit after taking custody of the sentenced
    federal offender. Pp. 2-3.
    (b) Section 3585(b) does not authorize a district court to compute the
    credit at sentencing. By stating crucial verbs in the past and present
    perfect tenses, the section indicates that the computation must occur
    after the defendant begins his sentence. A sentencing court,
    therefore, cannot apply the section. Indeed, the District Court here
    could not have made the necessary computation at sentencing, since
    the credit is based on how much time a defendant "has spent"(not "will
    have spent") prior to beginning his sentence. The court did not then
    know when the state court proceedings would end or when the federal
    authorities would take Wilson into custody, and only could have
    speculated about the amount of time that he would spend in
    detention. Moreover, it is immaterial that such detention "ha[d] not
    been credited" against a state sentence at the time of Wilson's federal
    sentencing, since basing the award of credit on the relative timing of
    sentencing proceedings would result in arbitrary awards. Pp. 4-5.
    (c) In light of the sentencing court's inability to compute the credit,
    the Attorney General must continue to make the calculation as he did
    in the past, even though § 3585(b) no longer mentions him. The
    offender has a right to certain jail time credit under the section, and
    BOP must know how much of a sentence remains in order to fulfill its
    statutory duty of administering the sentence. Congress' conversion of
    the former statute's active language into the passive voice in § 3585(b)
    is a slim ground for presuming an intention to change well established
    procedures for determining the credit. Pp. 5-6.
    (d) The general presumption that Congress contemplates a change
    whenever it amends a statute is overcome in this case by the
    foregoing analysis. Because the statute was entirely rewritten, and
    because any other interpretation would require this Court to stretch §
    3585(b)'s language, it is likely that the former reference to the
    Attorney General was simply lost in the shuffle. This interpretation
    does not render the 1987 revision meaningless, since Congress altered
    the predecessor statute in at least three other ways. Pp. 6-7.
    916 F. 2d 1115, reversed.

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