Rivera-Perez v. Stover

── Rivera-Perez v. Stover ── Case No.: 25-149 Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Date: March 26, 2026 Category: General 25-149 Rivera-Perez v. Stover United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit _____________________________________ August Term 2025 Argued: November 25, 2025 Decided: March 26, 2026 No. 25-149 _____________________________________ RAUL RIVERA-PEREZ, Petitioner-Appellee, — v. — RICK S TOVER, WARDEN, Respondent-Appellant. * _____________________________________ Before: JACOBS, BIANCO, AND N ATHAN, Circuit Judges. Respondent-Appellant Rick Stover, the Warden of the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Stefan R. Underhill, Judge), entered on November 19, 2024, granting Petitioner-Appellee Raul Rivera-Perez’s pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Rivera-Perez’s petition alleged that the Bureau of Prisons miscalculated the time credits he had earned under the First Step Act (“FSA”), 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(C), and thereby * The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as set forth above. illegally prevented his transfer from prison to prerelease custody. However, after Rivera-Perez filed the petition, he was transferred from prison into a residential reentry center (“RRC”), a form of prerelease custody, and Stover argued that the petition was moot. The district court then sua sponte construed the petition as seeking to apply Rivera-Perez’s remaining FSA time credits to reduce the length of his term of supervised release, and granted the petition, concluding that the FSA enables—and, in fact, requires—application of earned-time credits to reduce a prisoner’s term of supervised release pursuant to Section 3632(d)(4)(C). On appeal, Stover argues that FSA time credits allow a prisoner to begin prerelease custody or supervised release early, but cannot be used to reduce a prisoner’s term of supervised release. Therefore, according to Stover, once Rivera- Perez was transferred to prerelease custody, his case became moot. We conclude that Section 3632(d)(4)(C) does not allow earned-time credits to be used to reduce a prisoner’s term of supervised release. As such, Rivera- Perez’s petition became moot once he was transferred to an RRC. Accordingly, we VACATE the judgment of the district court and REMAND with instructions to dismiss this case as moot. Judge Jacobs concurs in a separate opinion. Judge Nathan dissents in a separate opinion. J. BRIAN MESKILL, (Sandra S. Glover, on the brief ) , Assistant United States Attorneys, for Marc H. Silverman, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, New Haven, Connecticut, for Respondent-Appellant. CHARLES F. WILLSON, Assistant Federal Defender, for Terence S. Ward, Federal Defender, District of Connecticut, Hartford, Connecticut, for Petitioner- Appellee. 2 JOSEPH F. BIANCO, Circuit Judge: Respondent-Appellant Rick Stover, the Warden of the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut (“FCI Danbury”), appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Stefan R. Underhill, Judge), entered on November 19, 2024, granting Petitioner-Appellee Raul Rivera-