Supreme Court weighs whether inmates can sue over wrongly denied early-release credits

The Supreme Court opened its November argument session on Monday by taking up a dispute over how far federal inmates can go to challenge the Bureau of Prisons' handling of earned time credits under the First Step Act, the 2018 bipartisan law meant to ease nonviolent offenders toward early release. The case, Maxwell v. Dinis, was the first argument on the argument calendar for the November sitting, and it asks the justices to resolve a split among the federal appeals courts over whether such claims belong in a habeas corpus petition at all.

The petitioner, William Maxwell, is serving a 20-year sentence at a low-security federal facility in Beaumont, Texas, following his 2015 conviction on racketeering and related charges tied to a scheme to take over FirstPlus Financial Group, a Texas mortgage company, and strip more than $14 million from it. According to filings in the court's online docket, Maxwell has no disciplinary infractions and has completed recidivism-reduction programming that, under the First Step Act, is supposed to earn him credits toward an earlier transfer to a halfway house or home confinement. He contends the Bureau of Prisons undercounted his credits by as much as 42 to 48 months; the government, using its own calculation, says he is not eligible for transfer until January 2027.

A lower court outlier

Maxwell filed his habeas petition without a lawyer in 2022. A federal district court dismissed it for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed on a different, broader ground: that habeas relief is unavailable to a federal prisoner unless winning the claim would automatically entitle him to accelerated release. Because a transfer to a halfway house or home confinement does not shorten a sentence outright, the appeals court held, Maxwell's claim could not proceed as a habeas case at all.

That rule, drawn from the Fifth Circuit's own 2020 precedent in Melot v. Bergami, put the circuit at odds with nine other federal appeals courts and, according to Maxwell's petition, in tension with the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Jones v. Hendrix. The mismatch was pronounced enough that the federal government itself told the justices it agreed the Fifth Circuit's reasoning was wrong — though it argued the case was a poor vehicle for deciding the broader question because Maxwell had not exhausted his administrative appeals. Because neither party was willing to defend the judgment below, the Court in June took the unusual step of appointing Washington attorney Brian W. Barnes as a court-appointed amicus to argue in its defense; the justices later granted a motion for divided argument, splitting time among Maxwell's lawyers, the Solicitor General's office and Barnes.

Years of disputed credits

The practical stakes extend well beyond Maxwell's own case. Ranking member Jamie Raskin of the House Judiciary Committee, in an amicus brief urging the Court to side with Maxwell, cited Government Accountability Office findings that the Bureau of Prisons has fully and correctly applied earned time credits for only 29 percent of eligible prisoners, and that more than half of those eligible would already qualify for transfer had their credits been calculated correctly. "Congress made a promise," Raskin wrote in his brief. "The courts must make sure the government keeps it."

"Congress made a promise. The courts must make sure the government keeps it." — Rep. Jamie Raskin, House Judiciary Committee

Senators Dick Durbin and Cory Booker, two of the First Step Act's original sponsors, filed a separate brief making a similar argument. They told the Court the Fifth Circuit's ruling "threatens to undermine Congress's groundbreaking approach to prison reform" and that nothing in the statutory text, congressional intent, or this Court's precedent supports cutting off habeas review of credit disputes. Advocacy groups including FAMM and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed briefs making related arguments, while the court-appointed amicus has countered that Maxwell's proposed test would force judges into fact-intensive, facility-by-facility inquiries with no clear statutory anchor.

Who is affected

The ruling will shape how thousands of federal prisoners nationwide can contest Bureau of Prisons credit calculations under the First Step Act, a law President Trump signed in 2018 with wide bipartisan backing. If the justices side with Maxwell, inmates who believe their credits were miscounted would have a clearer path into federal court through a habeas petition — the same vehicle state prisoners have long used to challenge denials of good-conduct credit. If the Court instead embraces the government's narrower formulation, or the court-appointed amicus's three-part framework, prisoners could still reach federal court but under a tighter standard that excludes claims the government frames as mere custody-level or housing disputes rather than challenges to the length of confinement itself.

Legal observers following the case noted its unusual posture. "The federal government agreed the Fifth Circuit was 'inconsistent'" with the Court's own 2023 habeas precedent, according to Bloomberg Law's coverage of the case, which also noted that Maxwell's petition — filed on his own, without a lawyer — was taken up by the Court only after the justices asked the government to respond, a step that often precedes a grant. The Washington Examiner and SCOTUSblog both described the case as the latest in a string of Supreme Court cases probing the outer edges of the First Step Act, following earlier rulings this term on compassionate-release eligibility.

What's next

Monday's argument gave the justices roughly an hour to probe both sides, with 15 minutes allotted to Maxwell's lawyers, 15 to the Solicitor General's office, and 30 to the court-appointed amicus defending the Fifth Circuit's judgment. No transcript or recording of the session had been posted as of Monday afternoon. A decision is not expected for months; the Court generally issues rulings in cases argued in the fall by the end of its term the following June, meaning a resolution of the circuit split — and clarity for Maxwell and prisoners in similar positions — is unlikely before mid-2027.