The Supreme Court opened its November sitting on Monday, Nov. 2, with a case about the 2018 First Step Act. The question is how a federal prisoner can go to court when he says the Bureau of Prisons denied him credits that would move him to a halfway house or home confinement sooner. The case is Maxwell v. Dinis, No. 25-5930. Three lawyers argued for just over an hour, and the justices spent much of that time on two worries. One was where a new rule would stop. The other was whether the case will matter by the time they decide it.
The prisoner, William Maxwell, and the Justice Department agree on the main point. Both say a habeas corpus petition is the right tool for his claim. The lower court disagreed, so the justices appointed a lawyer to defend its ruling. That lawyer argued that a move to a halfway house is a change in where a person serves a sentence, not a release from prison.
This is one of several Supreme Court arguments 567 Politics is following this term. Others include the Colorado preschool case set for argument on Tuesday and the Justice Department's emergency request over California mail ballots, filed the same day.
The question before the Court
The Court agreed to decide one question. As stated on the docket, it asks whether a claim about First Step Act time credits, "seeking accelerated transfer to a halfway house or home confinement, can be brought in a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. §2241."
Habeas corpus is the old legal tool for challenging unlawful detention. Section 2241 is the federal law that lets federal courts hear these petitions. The other main path for prisoners is a civil-rights suit. State prisoners can sue state officials under a law known as Section 1983. That law does not cover federal officials, though. Federal prisoners would have to rely on a Bivens claim, a court-made remedy the Supreme Court has sharply limited in recent years.
That gap is why the choice of tool matters here. If habeas is closed to claims like Maxwell's, the Justice Department wrote in its brief, there would be no other "evident home in federal law" for them.
How the First Step Act credits work
The First Step Act passed Congress with support from both parties in December 2018. President Donald Trump [Funding: campaign funding data not verified] signed it during his first term, as a brief from two of its Senate sponsors recounts.
The law lets some prisoners earn "time credits" by taking part in programs meant to reduce reoffending. The Justice Department's brief explains that these credits may be applied to speed up placement in "prerelease custody." That term covers halfway houses, also called residential reentry centers, and home confinement. Credits can also move up the start of supervised release, which begins after a prison term ends.
The Bureau of Prisons reports the program's reach on its First Step Act page. The page shows a running count of 67,170 people released under the law. It does not say what date that figure covers.
Who William Maxwell is
Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal sentence at a low-security prison in Beaumont, Texas, according to the government's brief. A SCOTUSblog preview by Richard Cooke reports that he was convicted in 2015 for a scheme involving FirstPlus Financial. The preview says that scheme took more than $14 million from the company.
Maxwell, who filed his petition without a lawyer, says the bureau failed to count 42 to 48 months of credits he earned. The district court dismissed his petition because he had not first used the prison's internal complaint process. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the dismissal on a different ground. It said habeas is available only when a claim would lead to faster release from custody. In its view, a move to a halfway house does not qualify, and his claim belonged in a civil-rights suit.
The government says Maxwell is projected to become eligible for a halfway house on Jan. 22, 2027. That date shaped much of Monday's argument.
Where federal prisoners are held
Most people in federal custody live in prisons run by the bureau. A smaller group serves time in the community under bureau supervision. The case turns on whether moving between those two groups is a change big enough to support a habeas claim.
type: bar
title: Where people in federal Bureau of Prisons custody are held
note: Counts as reported by the Bureau of Prisons. "Other community-based" combines jail and short-term detention (443), administrative (80), long-term boarders (59) and contract juvenile placements (42).
source: [Federal Bureau of Prisons population statistics, updated Oct. 29, 2026](https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp)
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Location | People
BOP-operated facilities | 136989
Residential reentry centers | 8634
Home confinement | 6272
Other community-based | 624
By the bureau's count, 152,519 people were in its custody. About 10% were in community-based settings, mostly halfway houses and home confinement.
Maxwell's argument
Masha G. Hansford argued for Maxwell. She said his claim fits the habeas statute's words because he is held "in custody in violation of the laws of the United States." She noted that neither the government nor the court-appointed lawyer defends the Fifth Circuit's exact rule. "No one defends that rule here," she said.
Maxwell's opening brief argues more broadly that habeas covers claims about a prisoner's "level of custody." It relies on the statute's text, on history and on cases such as Preiser v. Rodriguez (1973). In that case, the Court said state prisoners seeking restored good-time credits had to use habeas.
At the argument, Hansford signaled she would accept a narrower ruling. Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked why Maxwell was "even pushing for that rule given the risks of spillover." She pointed to claims about transfers to lower-security prisons. Hansford said Maxwell was "happy with a narrow" version of the government's test. Under that test, the line falls between prison and "not" prison.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked whether the Court should keep the phrase Justice Antonin Scalia once used, a "quantum change" in custody. Hansford said "any adjective you want to use there" would be fine.
Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Cory Booker of New Jersey, both Democrats and lead sponsors of the law, filed a brief supporting Maxwell. They wrote that the bureau has a "nondiscretionary obligation" to apply earned credits. They argued that the Fifth Circuit's ruling "threatens to undermine Congress's groundbreaking approach to prison reform." The sentencing reform group FAMM also filed in support. Its brief argues that prerelease custody is "meaningfully different" from ordinary incarceration. [Funding: reported PAC/committee receipts $7,000.00 (2026 cycle; retrieved 2026-10-31; limited scope)] [FEC source] [Funding: reported PAC/committee receipts $499,505.00 (2026 cycle; retrieved 2026-10-31; limited scope)] [FEC source]
The Justice Department's position
Kevin J. Barber, an assistant to the solicitor general, argued for the government. The warden is the named respondent, but the department sided with Maxwell on the main question. "If Petitioner has any avenue for his... First Step Act claim, habeas is the one," Barber said. He called a halfway house or home confinement "a modern version of federal parole." The Court has long allowed habeas for claims seeking parole.
The department still asked the Court not to rule for Maxwell outright. It asked the justices to vacate the Fifth Circuit's judgment, which would erase it, and send the case back. Barber also raised two reasons the Court might dismiss the case without deciding it.
The first is a provision in federal law, Section 3621(b). It says the bureau's choice of where to house a prisoner is not reviewable in court. Barber said this provision "does threaten to render the question presented academic for all federal prisoners." The second is timing. Maxwell's projected eligibility date is less than three months away, and the case may become moot once he is moved.
Hansford said the review-bar argument was "very weak." She said the provision covers which prison a person is sent to, not whether credits were counted.
The Court-appointed lawyer's position
Brian W. Barnes of the firm Cooper & Kirk argued in defense of the Fifth Circuit's judgment. The Court invited him to take that role in a June 16 order because neither party would.
"If Petitioner wins this lawsuit, his term of imprisonment won't be shortened by even a single day," Barnes told the justices. He said "prerelease custody isn't release, and home confinement is a form of confinement."
His brief argues that the parties share a mistaken premise. Many federal prisoners, it says, live in places that are "halfway in between" prison and freedom. It points to minimum-security prison camps with dormitory housing and no outer fences. The brief proposes a different line. A request to start supervised release would go through habeas, because supervised release ends the prison term. A request for more time in prerelease custody would not, because those prisoners are still serving their sentences.
What the justices asked
Justice Clarence Thomas opened the questioning by asking about the review bar, the exhaustion issue and "the possible mootness problem." Hansford said exhaustion should be left for the Fifth Circuit. She said Maxwell had tried to appeal that issue before the court ruled on other grounds. [Funding: campaign funding data not verified]
Justice Samuel Alito asked whether Maxwell meets all four requirements for prerelease custody. "Yes, he has," Hansford said. She said the only dispute is how his credits were calculated.
Justice Neil Gorsuch pressed Barber on where the government's rule would end. He asked about prisoners seeking a move from medium to minimum security. "Have you put the... camel's nose under the tent?" he asked. Barber said such claims would not count under the government's test because they do not seek release from prison. Gorsuch then described a prisoner in solitary confinement at a supermax facility moving to a medium-security prison with a job. "I think a lot of prisoners would say that's a big difference," he said.
Justice Elena Kagan asked about the phrase "reduce the level of custody." The Court used those words in a 2011 case, Skinner v. Switzer, quoting Scalia. She asked whether the government wanted the Court to reject that language. Barber said the Court had "at least arguably endorsed" the idea in the context of a change as large as prison to parole.
Several justices seemed reluctant to dismiss the case. Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked, "On 3621(b), why can't we leave that for remand?" Barber replied, "You can." Kavanaugh later said "it seems like we should resolve it and leave 3621(b) for the future." Barrett noted that the review-bar point was not a jurisdictional bar. She suggested it was not a "totally slam dunk" reason to dismiss.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether a narrow ruling "would be helpful because this kind of situation comes up a lot." Hansford agreed. Jackson also said Maxwell's eligibility date was "not so imminent that we couldn't rule." Barber said that if the Court rules before Jan. 22, it should issue its judgment right away so the case does not become moot during the rehearing period.
The Washington Examiner described the session as the latest high court case over the 2018 law. The full argument transcript is posted on the Court's website.
Why the case matters beyond one prisoner
Hansford said lower courts are split. In two large circuits, she said, prisoners are told to label these requests as Bivens claims. She argued that the issue tends to come up near the end of a sentence. By the time a prisoner exhausts internal remedies, there is often little time left for a court to act. A ruling either way would tell federal prisoners across the country which door to use.
Supporters of the law, including Durbin and Booker, frame the case as a test of whether its incentives can be enforced. They say prisoners who earn credits need a way to make the bureau apply them. Barnes and the Fifth Circuit frame it as a question of habeas limits. In their view, opening habeas to custody-level claims could invite a wide range of suits over prison placement. The government sits in between. It backs habeas for this kind of claim but says a separate law may block court review of placement decisions.
Readers can find more on federal policy debates in our United States issues guide. 567 Politics explains how it presents competing arguments in its methodology.
Campaign finance context
567 Politics checked Federal Election Commission snapshots for Durbin and Booker, both 2026 cycle and retrieved Oct. 31. The snapshots cover only registered committee contributions to their campaign committees. Durbin's lists four committee receipts totaling $7,000, the largest $3,000 from the National Association of Realtors PAC. Booker's lists dozens of committee receipts, many of them $10,000 entries from other lawmakers' leadership PACs. None is classified under a criminal justice topic in the site's partial topic registry. Nothing in the records connects to their brief in this case, and contributions do not show that a donor shaped any position.
Pending steps
- A decision could come at any time before the term ends, usually by late June or early July. The government asked that any ruling before Jan. 22 take effect immediately.
- The Court could vacate the Fifth Circuit's judgment, affirm it, or dismiss the case without a ruling.
- If the case goes back to the lower courts, they would take up exhaustion and possibly the Section 3621(b) review bar.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed against 567 Politics editorial standards. It is based on the Nov. 2 argument transcript, the docket and briefs filed by the parties and amici, Bureau of Prisons data and the reporting linked above, as available on the afternoon of Nov. 2. The Fifth Circuit's opinion was not opened directly; its reasoning is described through the briefs and the SCOTUSblog preview. Funding data comes from FEC committee-receipt snapshots, which leave out individual donations and are not career totals. Campaign finance data for Maxwell's lawyers and the other parties is not included because they are not candidates.