Reporters Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller have submitted their jail designation requests to the Judge. It will be interesting to see what the Judge recommends, and whether the Bureau of Prisons follows the Judge's recommendations.

Judicial recommendations are not binding on the Bureau of Prisons. However, if BOP does not follow a judge's recommendations, it must send a letter to the Judge explaining why. The defendant is not allowed to read the letter. Only the Judge and the Probation Department get to see it.

Contempt time is often called "dead time" and is usually served in a county or local jail. For example, if a federal prisoner gets called to the grand jury and refuses to testify, he or she will get contempt time added to their criminal sentence, to be served in the county hoosegow after their release on their federal sentence. Miller and Cooper aren't serving criminal sentences, though, and the Judge can recommend what he sees fit. Again, BOP might or might not honor the Judge's recommendation.

For Cooper, the local jail is the Washington D.C. jail, which as his lawyers note in their request, is a maximum security facility.