After having his application for a writ of habeas corpus denied by a District Court in North Carolina, convicted drug kingpin Dwight Major will not be leaving a US Federal Prison until at least 2016.
Major hoped he would be returning to the Bahamas this year as he was seeking credit for the time he served in Her Majesty’s Prison while awaiting extradition to the US.
When Major initially entered US custody in 2009, the court took into account the time Major spent confined in a Bahamian prison fighting extradition, and calculated his release date as arising in 2011.
However, in 2011, the US Bureau of Prisons began to make inquiries as to Major’s legal status while held in the Bahamian prison between 2004 and 2008 and determined that he was in the primary custody of the Bahamas, not the US and recalculated his release date as arising on May 4, 2016.
Major seeks credit towards his term of incarceration from June 19, 2003, to April 18, 2008, and argues that the Bureau of Prisons erred in computing his prison sentence.
Major exhausted his administrative remedies on this claim, and the Bureau of Prisons denied his claim for a final time on March 27, 2012.
On April 20, 2012, Major filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. On November 6, 2012, the court reviewed the petition and additional filings and allowed the action to proceed.
When Major failed to state a claim, on December 17, 2012, the Bureau of Prisons filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, or in the alternative for summary judgment. The court notified Major about the motion, the consequences of failing to respond, and the response deadline .
On March 1, 2013, Major filed a response to the motion along with an affidavit.
Major is serving a 108-month term of imprisonment in the US having been convicted there of certain drug related offences before the United States District Court of the Southern District of Florida.
On June 3, 2003, a Florida grand jury indicted Major on charges relating to the conspiracy to import and attempts to import substantial amounts of cocaine and marijuana into the United States.
On June 19, 2003, the United States issued a warrant for Major’s arrest, which Bahamian police executed on Major on July 19, 2003, while he was still serving time in the Bahamas.
The United States also commenced extradition proceedings, which Major vigorously contested in the Bahamas for several years, while confined at HM Prison, Fox Hill. On July 30, 2004, the Bahamian courts issued an extradition warrant. On November 7, 2007, in the Bahamas, Major was sentenced on his third conviction of conspiracy to import 1,600 kilograms of cocaine to a term of imprisonment of five years, retroactive to October 11, 2003.
Major made his first appearance in a US court after his extradition on April 21, 2008. On October 10, 2008, Major pleaded guilty to count one of the indictment and on July 13, 2009, the court sentenced Major to a term of imprisonment of 108 months, and recommended “that (Major) receive credit for time served in the Bahamas while awaiting extradition.
The Court pointed out that a term of federal imprisonment commences “on the date the defendant is received in custody awaiting transportation to, or arrives voluntarily to commence service of sentence at the official detention facility at which the sentence is to be served.”
“A federal sentence does not commence until the Attorney General receives the defendant into (his) custody’ for service of that sentence.”
“Primary jurisdiction over a person is generally determined by which (sovereign) first obtains custody of, or arrests, the person.”
A “writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum, issued to bring a prisoner to his own trial, works as a mere loan of the prisoner to federal authorities and does not effectuate a change in custodian for purposes of the federal statute. . . .”
The court determined that Major was in the primary legal custody of the Bahamas on June 3, 2003, when the US court issued its arrest warrant and remained primary legal custody of the Bahamas until September 28, 2004, where he was serving a prison sentence imposed in the Bahamas.
It said that the question is whether Major’s 2007 Bahamas criminal judgment — which was imposed retroactive to October 11, 2003, when he was still in the primary legal custody of the Bahamas but has been suspended pending his appeal by operation of Bahamian law — makes the period of time between September 28, 2004, and April 18, 2008, a period of time which “has not been credited against another sentence.”
The court said Major failed to show that he is entitled to credit for time served in another sovereign’s jail or prison and that he did not receive such credit.
“Major has failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether the BOP properly determined that Major was not entitled to the credit, as it had already been applied to his third Bahamian conviction,” the court said.
The Tribune
