Pennsylvania Court Rules BOP Has Authority to Grant 6-months Halfway House

by Derek Gilna

Normally, courts are hesitant to even consider cases involving the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) designating people to halfway houses, noting that a long series of cases hold that the BOP’s power to designate to an institution of their choosing is not judicially-reviewable.

This case dealt with plaintiff Michael L. Serafini’s habeas complaint. The BOP argued that its “decision to defer [his] transfer to a [Community Corrections Center] CCC was an appropriate exercise of discretion to which this Court must defer,” according to the opinion that the BOP was restricted to giving assigning 10% of a prisoner’s sentence to CCC placement.

Serafini argued that the BOP had “Explicitly declined to exercise discretion to make a CCC placement for more than the last 10% of his prison term,” arguing that they “had the authority to place him in a CCC for the last six months of his term of incarceration.” The court noted that BOP Program Statement 7310.04 had given the BOP authority to “place a prisoner in a CCC for more than the last 10 percent of the term...,” after a December, 2002 policy change.

However, in the matter of Cioffoletti v. Federal Bureau of Prison, No. 03-CV-3220, 2003 WL 23208216, 2003 U.S. Dist. Lexis 21853 (E.D.N.Y.) Nov. 6, 2003), the court noted the “long observed” practice “of allowing eligible (prisoners) to serve up to the last six months of their sentence in a community correction center regardless of the term of that sentence....”

The court, in ordering that the BOP “consider” Serafini for a CCC placement in excess of six months, was careful to note that it was still within the BOP discretion, as long as it “utilizing the factors that it considered prior to the December, 2002 policy change.”

See: Serafini v. Dodrill, 325 F.Supp.2d 535 (M.D. Pa. 2004).

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