Patrick Cole v. J.E. Thomas

MEMORANDUM

Petitioner-Appellant Patrick D. Cole (Cole), a federal prisoner, appeals the Oregon district court’s dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 . We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2258 , and we affirm.

The District Court for the Southern District of Texas previously considered the legality of the Bureau of Prisons’s (BOP) administration of Cole’s sentence when it reviewed and dismissed Cole’s habeas petition to that court in 2002. The Oregon district court therefore properly dismissed Cole’s 2012 petition as successive under 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (a). The recent case of Setser v. United States, — U.S. —, 132 S.Ct. 1463 , 182 L.Ed.2d 455 (2012), does not undermine this determination.

Additionally, the BOP’s letter to the judge who imposed Cole’s federal sentence did not violate Cole’s rights. The BOP “ultimately has to determine how long the District Court’s sentence authorizes it to continue [a prisoner’s] confinement.” Setser, 132 S.Ct. at 1473 . The BOP by statute considers “any statement by the court that imposed the sentence concerning the purposes for which the sentence to imprisonment was determined to be warranted or…