Devon Rashaad Wright-Nasalski v. Warden, FCI Three Rivers

Summary

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas adopts a magistrate judge’s recommendation granting Devon Rashaad Wright-Nasalski’s 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas petition. The court holds that the federal sentences may be sequenced to give effect to the sentencing judge’s order that the 100-month federal sentence run concurrently with the state sentence, while preserving aggregation of the federal sentences. The court orders recalculation of the petitioner’s sentence to credit time served in state custody and denies the respondent’s construed motion for summary judgment.

Holdings

1. The phrase "consecutive to" requires sentences to be served in sequence but does not necessarily establish a specific order among the sentences.
2. Sequencing the federal sentences as 100 months followed by 14 months did not violate the aggregation statute because the federal sentences remained a single continuous 114-month aggregate term.
3. The petition for a writ of habeas corpus was granted, and the petitioner's sentence was required to be recalculated so that time served in state custody received credit consistent with the 100-month federal sentence running concurrently with the state sentence.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the sentencing orders requiring sentences to run consecutively necessarily specified the order in which the sentences had to be served.
2. Whether the recommended sequencing of the 100-month and 14-month federal sentences violated the federal aggregation statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3584(c).
3. Whether the BOP's sentence calculation gave effect to the order that the 100-month federal sentence run concurrently with the 24-month state sentence.

Disposition

writ_granted