United States of America v. Jasmine Bradley

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-2830
U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JASMINE BRADLEY ,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 20-cr-10018-JES-JEH — James E. Shadid, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED A UGUST 6, 2024 — DECIDED A UGUST 15, 2024
____________________
Before EASTERBROOK, S T. EVE, and K OLAR , Circuit Judges.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. After an assessment con-
cluded that Jasmine Bradley was incompetent to assist in the
defense of pending criminal charges, a district court referred
her to the Bureau of Prisons under 18 U.S.C. §4241 so that it
could evaluate whether any therapy would restore her com-
petence. She reported to the United States Marshal on January
28, 2022. The Bureau released her on August 24 and six days
later filed with the court a report stating that Bradley was then

-- 1 of 6 --

2 No. 23-2830
competent. She pleaded guilty to ten counts of fraud and ag-
gravated identity theft, for which she was sentenced to 198
months’ imprisonment. Her conditional guilty plea, see Fed.
R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2), reserves a single issue for appellate re-
view: whether the passage of seven months between report-
ing and release required the district court to dismiss Bradley’s
indictment with prejudice. Before she entered her plea, the
district court held that dismissal is not mandatory. 2022 U.S.
Dist. LEXIS 197493 (C.D. Ill. Oct. 31, 2022).
Section 4241(d) is the source of the time limits that apply
to Bradley. Here is its text:
If … the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the
defendant is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect
rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is una-
ble to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings
against him or to assist properly in his defense, the court shall
commit the defendant to the custody of the Attorney General. The
Attorney General shall hospitalize the defendant for treatment in
a suitable facility—
(1) for such a reasonable period of time, not to exceed four
months, as is necessary to determine whether there is a sub-
stantial probability that in the foreseeable future he will attain
the capacity to permit the proceedings to go forward; and
(2) for an additional reasonable period of time until—
(A) his mental condition is so improved that trial may
proceed, if the court finds that there is a substantial prob-
ability that within such additional period of time he will
attain the capacity to permit the proceedings to go for-
ward; or
(B) the pending charges against him are disposed of ac-
cording to law;
whichever is earlier.

-- 2 of 6 --

No. 23-2830 3
If, at the end of the time period specified, it is determined that the
defendant’s mental condition has not so improved as to permit
the proceedings to go forward, the defendant is subject to the pro-
visions of sections 4246 and 4248.
The parties disagree about many interpretive points. Bradley
contends, for example, that the four months allowed by
§4241(d)(1) starts on the day that custody begins, while the
United States contends that it begins only when the defendant
enters a facility for evaluation. (For Bradley, more than five
weeks passed between her surrender to the Marshals and her
arrival at the Bureau’s Carswell facility.) They disagree about
when a district court can use §4241(d)(2)(A) to add time. Brad-
ley insists that more time is available under (d)(2)(A) only af-
ter the Bureau concludes that a defendant may be restored to
competence; the United States contends that this subsection
may be used before that stage has been reached.
We need not resolve these disputes today. The subject re-
served by the conditional guilty plea is whether dismissal
with prejudice is mandatory if the Bureau exceeds the statu-
tory time, as it did for Bradley. (Even if, as United States v.
Alhindi, 97 F.4th 814, 824 (11th Cir. 2024), holds, the four
months starts only when a detainee arrives at a medical facil-
ity, the Bureau exceeded that time, and the district court did
not exercise whatever power it has under (d)(2)(A).) Courts
must enforce statutory remedies for violations of statutory
time limits. For example, the Speedy Trial Act prescribes dis-
missal of the indictment if the trial is delayed beyond the stat-
utory limit. 18 U.S.C. §3162(a)(2). But §4241 does not desig-
nate a remedy. It sets a boundary—“a reasonable period of
time, not to exceed four months”—but does not say what hap-
pens if the Bureau takes longer. Nor does dismissal become

-- 3 of 6 --

4 No. 23-2830
essential through the Speedy Trial Act, as §3161(h)(1)(A) ex-
cludes all delay caused by mental-health examinations.
The Supreme Court calls a statutory time limit for action
by a governmental body a “time-related directive.” See McIn-
tosh v. United States, 601 U.S. 330 (2024). When the statute
specifies a consequence of missing the deadline, the court
must apply the rule. But when the statute does not specify a
consequence the court has discretion to proceed sensibly.
That’s the holding of McIntosh and the many predecessors it
cites and summarizes. The United States Code teems with
time limits, but governmental bodies are beset by delay. Even
when an agency tries its best (something that cannot be guar-
anteed in any bureaucracy), it faces resource constraints. Con-
gress caps the size of its staff and the amount it can offer in
pay, which may make it hard to hire well-qualified people.
The Bureau of Prisons cannot control how many detainees
courts will refer under §4241 at any given time or how diffi-
cult each situation may be. Exceeding the four-month limit on
occasion is inevitable.
We assume that a judge may order a detained person to be
released while the Bureau continues to pore over her medical
records, but that is not the remedy Bradley seeks. The remedy
she does want—dismissal of the indictment with prejudice—
is a mismatch for delay in restoring a detainee to competence.
If the Bureau succeeds in making a detainee competent to
stand trial, and a conviction ensues, the accused will receive
credit against the sentence for the time in custody, just as
other pretrial detention is credited or otherwise taken into ac-
count. Dismissing the indictment with prejudice, which gives
a guilty person a windfall and injures society’s interest in cur-
tailing crime, is unnecessary to make the detainee whole.

-- 4 of 6 --

No. 23-2830 5
The four-month limit is most important for people who
are not restored to competence. They should be released
promptly or referred for commitment proceedings under 18
U.S.C. §§ 4246 and 4248. Dismissing the indictments of per-
sons found competent cannot help those persons who remain
unfit for trial. Nor would dismissing Bradley’s indictment aid
another set of persons affected by §4241—those found com-
petent to be tried and later acquitted. Reducing the length of
pretrial detention for such persons is a worthy goal, but it is
best achieved by ordering their release on bail if the Bureau
takes too long. Dismissing indictments, by contrast, would
prevent the criminal-justice system from sorting the guilty
from the innocent, a vital step in controlling and punishing
illegal activity and achieving relief for victims.
Bradley suggests that dismissal of her indictment may be
required by Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972), but we do
not see why. Jackson held that a state “cannot constitutionally
commit [a person] for an indefinite period simply on account
of his incompetency to stand trial on the charges filed against
him.” Id. at 720. The United States did not do that to Bradley.
Detaining someone before trial to learn whether she is or can
be competent to assist in her own defense is outside the scope
of Jackson unless the detention is so extended that it becomes
unreasonable. Id. at 738. See United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S.
739 (1987) (pretrial detention generally is permissible).
Bradley constructs a syllogism in which she uses Jackson
for the major premise that detention to determine competence
must not exceed a reasonable time. The minor premise, from
§4241(d)(1), is that detention exceeding four months is unrea-
sonable. Conclusion: to violate §4241 is to violate the Consti-
tution. Yet Jackson did not hold or even hint that four months

-- 5 of 6 --

6 No. 23-2830
is too long. Jackson dealt with indefinite detention (3½ years
and counting) of a person known to be incompetent, and it
held that such a person must be referred to the normal appa-
ratus for determining whether civil commitment is appropri-
ate. See also Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418 (1979).
A violation of §4241, like a violation of any other federal
statute or regulation, is just a violation of enacted law, not of
society’s basic compact. See United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S.
741 (1979). Congress is free to direct the bureaucracy to act
faster than the Constitution requires on its own; this does not
imbue the shorter deadline with constitutional status. Cf. Vir-
ginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164 (2008). When a statute or regula-
tion does not specify a remedy, judges must choose a fitting
one. Compulsory dismissal of the indictment with prejudice
is not an appropriate remedy for an evaluation under
§4241(d)(1) that takes more than four months.
A FFIRMED

-- 6 of 6 --