David Aaron

A federal inmate applied for habeas corpus with certiorari in aid challenging an involuntary transfer from a medium security institution to a high security institution following discovery of a sharpened knife in the inmate’s shoe.

The applicant argued the warden’s decision was unreasonable under the standard articulated in Mission Institution v. Khela because a member of the case management team believed the inmate’s explanation that he was unaware of the weapon.

The court held the warden was the statutory decision-maker and that the transfer decision fell within the range of reasonable outcomes based on the safety risks posed by possession of a weapon in a correctional facility.

The existence of a differing opinion among staff did not render the decision unreasonable.

The habeas corpus application was dismissed.

An inmate serving a life sentence applied for habeas corpus challenging his continued detention in a medium-security institution following a settlement that required his transfer from a maximum-security institution to a medium-security federal penitentiary in Ontario.

The applicant argued that transfer to a particular medium-security facility imposed more restrictive housing conditions and therefore constituted a deprivation of liberty.

The court held that the move from maximum to medium security increased, rather than reduced, the applicant’s liberty and therefore did not establish the deprivation required for habeas corpus.

The court further found that the transfer complied with the parties’ settlement terms and that the correctional authorities retained discretion to determine the specific institution.

The application was dismissed.

The applicant brought a habeas corpus application alleging that federal correctional authorities had miscalculated his sentence following his transfer from Japan to Canada under the International Transfer of Offenders Act.

He argued that 400 days spent in a Japanese prison workhouse for failure to pay a fine should count toward his custodial sentence and that additional credit should be granted for pre-sentence custody.

The court held that Canada must respect the legal nature and duration of the foreign sentence under the continued enforcement method in the Act.

The Japanese court had treated the workhouse detention as serving the fine sentence, not the custodial term, and had expressly determined the amount of pre-sentence credit.

Canadian authorities therefore correctly calculated the enforceable sentence as ten years less 165 days commencing February 19, 2005.