Brian Aldrich Dupree v. Warden, FCI Miami , 606 F. App'x 559 ( 2015 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 14-14785
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cv-24413-FAM
BRIAN ALDRICH DUPREE,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
WARDEN, FCI MIAMI,
Respondent-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(June 8, 2015)
Before TJOFLAT, WILSON and WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Brian Dupree, a federal prisoner, appeals the denial of his petition for a writ
of habeas corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Dupree argued that he was entitled to credit
toward his federal sentence for time he had served in state custody for a separate
state offense. The district court adopted the report and recommendation of a
magistrate judge to deny Dupree’s petition. Dupree challenges the denial of his
objections to the report as untimely; the denial of his petition; the treatment of his
motion for summary judgment as a motion for reconsideration; and the summary
denial of his second motion for reconsideration. We affirm.
Dupree argues that the district court erred by denying as untimely the
objections that he filed with prison officials within 14 days after issuance of the
report and recommendation, see Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 108 S. Ct. 2379
(1988), but any error was harmless. The district court reviewed de novo the record
and determined that the Bureau of Prisons calculated Dupree’s sentence correctly.
See Braxton v. Estelle, 641 F.2d 392, 397 (5th Cir. 1981).
The district court did not err in its ruling on the merits. Dupree was not
entitled to credit toward his federal sentence for the time he had served in state
custody because he had already received credit toward his state sentence. See 18
U.S.C. § 3585(b)(2) (“A defendant shall be given credit toward the service of a
term of imprisonment for any time he has spent in official detention prior to the
date the sentence commences . . . that has not been credited against another
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sentence.”). Dupree argues that he can nonetheless receive credit toward his federal
sentence under Willis v. United States, 438 F.2d 923 (5th Cir. 1971), but that
decision interpreted a statute that allowed federal defendants to receive credit
toward a federal sentence regardless of whether it had been credited toward
another sentence. Id.at 925. The statute that Willis applied, 18 U.S.C. § 3568, was
amended in 1987, see id. § 3585(b), to “ma[k]e clear that a defendant [can] not
receive a double credit for his detention time.” United States v. Wilson, 503 U.S.
329, 337, 112 S. Ct. 1351, 1355–56 (1992); see also Dawson v. Scott, 50 F.3d 884,
887 n.4 (11th Cir. 1995).
The district court did not abuse its discretion when it treated Dupree’s
motion for summary judgment as a motion for reconsideration. After issuance of
the report and recommendation, Dupree moved for summary judgment on the
ground that the government failed to dispute that he was entitled to relief under
Willis, but that issue had already been addressed by the magistrate judge. In the
report, the magistrate judge mentioned that the government had “completely failed
to address” the Willis argument and then rejected that argument as lacking merit.
Based on those events, the district court was entitled to “ignore the legal label that
[Dupree] attache[d] to [his] motion and recharacterize” it as a motion for
reconsideration, which “better correspond[ed] [to its] substance . . . and its
underlying legal basis.” Castro v. United States, 540 U.S. 375, 381–82, 124 S. Ct.
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786, 791–92 (2003). The district court reasonably construed Dupree’s motion as
seeking reconsideration of his argument for relief under Willis.
We also lack jurisdiction to consider Dupree’s challenge to the denial of his
second motion for reconsideration. Dupree failed to mention the order denying his
second motion in his original notice of appeal or in his amended notice. See
Osterneck v. E.T. Barwick Indus., Inc., 825 F.2d 1521, 1528 (11th Cir. 1987).
We AFFIRM the denial of Dupree’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
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