Third Circuit Rules Awarding BOP Prisoners 54 Days of Good Time Per Year Is Pro-Rated
by Douglas Ankney
On July 9, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that 18 U.S.C. section 3624(b)(1), which awards federal prisoners of up to 54 days per year of good conduct credits, is to be prorated for partial years of confinement.
Christopher Thieme filed a habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. section 2241 after he concluded that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had miscalculated his release date. Thieme is serving a sentence of 210 months (17.5 years) in prison for charges related to murder-for-hire. At the time of his sentencing in 2016, the maximum good conduct time credit he could earn was 823 days.
But after the First Step Act of 2018 (FSA) amended 18 U.S.C. section 3624(b)(1), the BOP recalculated Thieme’s potential credits and concluded he was eligible for up to 944 days of good conduct time credits. However, Thieme found that he was eligible for up to 972 days of good conduct time credits. The discrepancy was the result of differing methods of calculation with regard to the last six months of Thieme’s sentence.
The BOP determined Thieme was eligible for only 26 days of good conduct time credits for that six-month period. The BOP’s formula was to prorate the 54 days per year at a rate of 0.148 days good conduct credits per day served (54 days divided by 365 days = 0.148 days).
Thieme, on the other hand, determined he was eligible for 54 days for the last six months of his sentence because that final six months began another year. The district court sided with the BOP and dismissed the habeas petition. Thieme appealed.
The Third Circuit observed that “[s]ince 1867, federal prisoners have been statutorily eligible for reduced sentences based on their good conduct while incarcerated. The modern system for granting prisoners such good conduct time credit began with the enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 [the “SRA”]. Under the SRA, federal prisoners ‘were eligible for a good conduct time credit ‘of fifty-four days at the end of each year of [their] term of imprisonment.’” The BOP could withhold the credit if the prisoner “had not satisfactorily complied with … institutional disciplinary regulations,” and any such credit was to be “prorated” for the “last year or portion of a year of the term of imprisonment.”
The statute was amended twice—once in 1994 and again in 1996—regarding provisions not relevant here. However, even after those amendments, it was unclear whether the phrase “prisoner’s term of imprisonment” meant the initially imposed prison term or the actual prison term served (the latter of which could be less because of the reductions for earned good conduct time credit).
In Barber v. Thomas (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court cleared up the ambiguity by concluding that the statute’s provision awarding the good conduct time credit “at the end of each year” and subject to the BOP’s determination that the prisoner had behaved appropriately “during that year” meant that the statute’s purpose was to implement “a system of retrospective award” and not “prospective entitlement.” From there, the U.S. Supreme Court “held that good conduct time credit was available only for the term of imprisonment actually served by the prisoner—not for the term of imprisonment imposed by the sentencing judge.” Therefore, the 54 days of good conduct time credit was to be awarded “for each full year of imprisonment that [a prisoner] serves and a proportionally adjusted amount of credit for any additional time served that is less than a full year.”
But the FSA amended 18 U.S.C. section 3624(b)(1) in several significant ways that eliminated the “prorated” language and gave the statute attributes of prospective entitlement (subject to BOP review) in lieu of purely retrospective reward. For example, the FSA amendments replaced the phrase “prisoner’s term of imprisonment” with “prisoner’s sentence” making the statute read:
“Subject to paragraph (2), a prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year other than a term of imprisonment for the duration of the prisoner’s life, may receive credit toward the service of the prisoner’s sentence, of up to 54 days for each year of the prisoner’s sentence imposed by the court, subject to determination by the Bureau of Prisons that, during that year, the prisoner has displayed exemplary compliance with institutional disciplinary regulations…. Subject to paragraph (2), credit for the last year of a term of imprisonment shall be credited on the first day of the last year of the term of imprisonment.”
But even with the amendments, the FSA did not change the language that prisoners were eligible for up to 54 days “for each” year of the prisoner’s sentence. And the words “for each” have “a common and ordinary meaning synonymous with the word ‘per.’” And “per,” when “[u]sed after a statement of number or quantity… express[es] a rate or proration.”
The Court concluded that “the revised statute is most naturally read as setting a rate for good conduct time credit at 54 days per year” and “credit for partial years of confinement are determined on a prorated basis.”
Accordingly, the Court affirmed the judgement of the district court. See: Thieme v. Warden, No. 23-1697 (3d Cir. 2025).
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Related legal case
Thieme v. Warden
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | No. 23-1697 (3d Cir. 2025) |
| Level | Court of Appeals |