Cite as: 515 U. S. 50 (1995)
Stevens, J., dissenting
custody as a result of the offense that gave rise to his conviction. When that confinement is in a facility that has all the restraints of a typical prison, it should not matter whether that facility is operated by a State, a county, or a private custodian pursuant to a contract with the Government.
Purporting to establish the contrary conclusion, the Court labors to prove the rather obvious proposition that all persons in the custody of the Attorney General pursuant to a detention order issued under 18 U. S. C. § 3142 (1988 ed. and Supp. V), as well as all persons confined in an "official detention facility" under § 3585(a), are also in "official detention" within the meaning of § 3585(b). However, proof that confinement under § 3142 or § 3585(a) constitutes official detention certainly is not proof that no other form of confinement can constitute official detention. The majority thus fails to demonstrate that respondent should not receive sentencing credit for his court-ordered full-time confinement in a jail-type facility.
Moreover, the Court's restrictive interpretation creates an anomalous result. Under the Court's view that only a person "committed to the custody of the Attorney General" can be in "official detention," § 3585(b) does not authorize any credit for time spent in state custody, "no matter how restrictive the conditions." Ante, at 60, 63-64, n. 5. This conclusion is so plainly at war with common sense that even the Attorney General rejects it. See Brief for Petitioners 11 ("[T]he Bureau grants credit for time spent in state custody"); see also Reply Brief for Petitioners 7-8.
The majority attempts to escape its self-created anomaly by suggesting that it "need not and do[es] not rule" on the propriety of giving credit for confinement under state law. Ante, at 64, n. 5. But that contention simply collapses the majority's house of cards. For either the "text" of the Bail Reform Act limits "official detention" to custody of the Attorney General, in which case the majority adopts an interpretation that even the Attorney General rejects, or the
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