United States v. Suarez-Reyes
Opinion
*605
"It is true, in federal appellate practice as in nature, that '[t]o every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose.' "
Fisichelli
v.
City Known as Town of Methuen
,
A sketch of the facts and travel of the case suffices to lend perspective. On January 20, 2017, the United States Coast Guard intercepted a vessel en route to the United States, which was carrying thirty undocumented individuals from Haiti and the Dominican Republic (including the defendant). During an interview with Border Patrol agents, the defendant-who previously had been removed from the United States following service of an eighteen-month term of immurement for using a telephone to facilitate a drug-trafficking offense,
see
Within a week, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Puerto Rico handed up an indictment that charged the defendant with unlawfully attempting to enter the United States after being removed therefrom following an aggravated felony conviction.
See
In July of 2017, the defendant timely appealed his custodial sentence. 1 His appeal was still pending on July 30, 2018, when (having received credit for time served in pretrial detention and good-time credits during his incarceration) he completed his custodial term and began serving his term of supervised release.
Meanwhile, the appeal went forward. Appointed in mid-September of 2017, the defendant's counsel did not move to expedite the appeal, see 1st Cir. I.O.P. VII.B, despite the brevity of the defendant's custodial sentence. Nor is there any indication that counsel sought expedited preparation of the short transcript. Instead, counsel successfully moved-twice-to extend the briefing deadline by a total of five weeks. When filed in April of 2018, the defendant's principal brief challenged only a series of alleged errors related to the length of his custodial sentence. That brief did not challenge either the defendant's underlying conviction or any aspect of his term of supervised release.
The government, without any meaningful opposition, then sought and obtained three separate extensions of its briefing *606 deadline (for a total of approximately three months). On July 31, 2018-the day after the defendant was released from custody-the government tendered its brief. In that brief, the government not only replied to the challenges raised to the defendant's custodial sentence but also asserted that the defendant's release from prison rendered his appeal moot. The defendant neither filed a reply brief nor responded in any other way to the government's mootness argument.
We have noted before that, in some circumstances, "silence speaks volumes."
SEC
v.
Tambone
,
A federal court's jurisdiction is constitutionally limited to the resolution of actual "cases" and "controversies." U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. In instances "where a court cannot provide effectual relief, no justiciable case remains and the court must dismiss the appeal as moot."
Oakville Dev. Corp.
v.
FDIC
,
When the defendant filed his notice of appeal, he was still serving his prison sentence. A challenge to that sentence therefore presented a live controversy. But the passage of time has reshaped the contours of the case: he has since been released from prison, and "[t]he [ ]incarceration that he incurred ... is now over, and cannot be undone."
Spencer
v.
Kemna
,
We need go no further. When, as in this case, an appeal, even if successful, would not pave the way for any effectual relief, the appeal is moot. Hence, we summarily *607 dismiss the defendant's appeal and leave intact the judgment of the district court.
Dismissed . See 1st Cir. R. 27.0(c).
Although the notice of appeal was not docketed until August 2, 2017, the envelope in which it was mailed was postmarked July 28, 2017, thus rendering the appeal timely. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(c)(1).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Isidro SUAREZ-REYES, Defendant, Appellant.
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published