This paper will analyze Reno v. Koray. The paper will give an overview of the facts and the legal disputes which the District Court sought to resolve and explain why the Court of Appeals reversed the lower court. This paper will then summarize the three opinions of the case. Finally, the paper will
take a stand on the case and use convincing arguments and an analysis of constitutional issues to support its position.
Zeno Koray was arrested for money laundering, a violation of federal law, in 1991. He was tried in Maryland, where he pled guilty to the charge in front of a U. S. District judge. A federal magistrate then ordered Koray to be released on bail pursuant to the Bail Reform Act of 1984, whereafter he was confined to a treatment center. The issue which the District Court had to decide was whether Koray's stay at the center could be construed as "official detention" under the definition of ยง3585(b) of 18 USCS, which provides that a defendant should usually "be given credit toward the service of a term of imprisonment for any time he has spent in official detention prior to the date the sentence commences." The District Court held that the time which Zoray spent in the center would not be construed as "official detention" under the statute.
The Court of Appeals had to reconsider the question of whether Zoray's stay in the center fell within the meaning of the statute's "official detention" language. The Government contended that the meaning of this phrase should have been strictly limited to situations where a court ordered a prisoner to be committed to the custody of the Attorney General, and only to such custody, and not to any treatment center facility. However, Zoray's attorney argued that any restrictive conditions of his release on bail significantly curtailed his liberty. Thus, the respondent argued that because he was not released from confinement on an unrestricted bail, that he was officially de...