Charles F. Smith v. United States Parole Commission U.S. Attorney General

Smith, a federal prisoner, appeals from the district court’s dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus which he filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 . Smith seeks to have this court credit his federal sentence for time that he served in state custody as a result of (1) the federal authorities’ alleged administrative error in failing to take him into federal custody, and (2) his financial inability to post bail in the state court. As additional grounds for claiming credit on his federal sentence, Smith alleges that the United States Parole Commission (Parole Commission) violated the ex post facto clause of the United States Constitution by applying current parole guidelines to his earlier parole violation, and that the Parole Commission deprived him of his constitutional right to counsel prior to his parole revocation hearing. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253 , and we affirm.

I

In 1975, Smith was convicted of federal bank robbery in United States District Court in the Northern District of Georgia. He received a 15-year sentence from which he was paroled on July 8, 1980. Shortly after his release, he violated the terms of his parole by failing to report…