Waletzki v. Keohane

POSNER, Chief Judge. This is an appeal from the denial of habeas corpus to a federal prisoner, Daniel Waletzki. 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A federal statute (since repealed, but applicable to the considerable number of prisoners who committed their offenses before November 1, 1987) allows a prison to award good-time credits, which reduce a prisoner's sentence, for meritorious performance of the job to which the prisoner is assigned. 18 U.S.C. § 4162. Waletzki claims that he should have received such credits for his work in the food service department of his prison; he argues that the refusal to award them was arbitrary. We must consider first whether habeas corpus is ever a proper remedy in such a case. At first glance it seems odd that a dispute over a claim for a form of compensation for prison labor should be the basis for seeking habeas corpus. But good-time credits reduce the length of imprisonment, and habeas corpus is available to challenge the duration as well as the fact of custody. Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 490, 500, 36 L. Ed. 2d 439, 93 S. Ct. 1827 (1973); Hanson v. Heckel, 791 F.2d 93 (7th Cir. 1986) (per curiam). It is true that prisoners usually base such challenges on some defect in the conviction or sentence, not here alleged. But not always--in fact a prisoner who challenges his federal conviction or sentence cannot use the federal habeas corpus statute at all but instead must proceed under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. But when he is attacking the fact or length of his confinement in a federal prison on the basis of something that happened after he was convicted and sentenced, habeas corpus is the right remedy. 2 James S. Liebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure § 36.2, p. 549 n. 7 (1988).