United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

No. 22-1750

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

ROY SASTROM,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. Patti B. Saris, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Montecalvo, Selya, and Rikelman, Circuit Judges.

Max Rodriguez, with whom Pollock Cohen LLP was on brief, for appellant. Donald C. Lockhart, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Joshua S. Levy, Acting United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

March 15, 2024 SELYA, Circuit Judge. It is black-letter law that a

federal court cannot hear a moot case. See Gulf of Me. Fishermen's

All. v. Daley,

(1st Cir. 2002); In re Cont'l Mortg.

Invs.,

(1st Cir. 1978). Even when a case is not

moot, however, we may in particular circumstances exercise our

discretion and decline to order a certain remedy. See 13B Charles

Alan Wright, et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 3533.1 (3d

ed.). This is such a case.

Defendant-appellant Roy Sastrom is serving a term of

supervised release. The United States District Court for the

District of Massachusetts modified his supervised release

conditions, and Sastrom seeks to challenge that modification. But

there is a rub: Sastrom's case has since been transferred to the

District of Connecticut, which is in another circuit, pursuant to

. Given this transfer, we currently lack authority

to adjust Sastrom's supervised release conditions and cannot

provide any viable remedy short of requesting the district court

to attempt to retrieve this case from Connecticut. Concluding

that we are not obligated either to advise the district court to

attempt to retrieve Sastrom's case or to cross jurisdictional

lines, we leave the parties where we found them and affirm.

I

We briefly rehearse the relevant facts and travel of the

case.

- 2 - A

In 1994, Sastrom was acquitted in a Connecticut state

court by reason of mental disease or defect on charges of

harassment, threatening, and attempted larceny. See Conn. Gen.

Stat. §§ 53a-182b(a), 53a-62(a)(2), 53a-49, 53a-125a. These

charges grew out of letters that Sastrom wrote while serving a

fifteen-year sentence in a Connecticut state prison for the

commission of burglaries.

Following his acquittal, Sastrom was committed to the

jurisdiction of the Connecticut Psychiatric Security Review Board

(the PSRB) for a period not to exceed forty years. On May 31,

2008 — while serving his civil commitment at a psychiatric hospital

in Connecticut — Sastrom escaped. He proceeded to burglarize two

homes in Maine (one of which belonged to a federal game warden);

steal a truck, an air pistol, and ammunition from the warden;

purchase a BB gun; and rob a bank. When arrested, Sastrom was

transferred to a Connecticut state prison. He later pleaded guilty

in the United States District Court for the District of

Massachusetts to charges of armed bank robbery and illegal

possession of ammunition. See 18 U.S.C. U.S.C. §§ 2113(d), 922(g).

While still incarcerated in Connecticut, Sastrom mailed

letters to the United States Supreme Court and the United States

Department of Veterans Affairs. Both letters contained the

statement "Anthrax Die!" — but neither letter actually contained

- 3 - anthrax. The letters led to further charges, and Sastrom pleaded

guilty to conveying false information and hoaxes. See

(a)(1).

All of these post-escape cases were effectively

consolidated and eventually landed in the District of

Massachusetts. In 2009, that court (Harrington, J.) accepted

Sastrom's guilty pleas and sentenced him to serve a 180-month term

of immurement, to be followed by a thirty-six-month term of

supervised release.1 The judgment did not require Sastrom to

report to Connecticut during his term of supervised release.

When the district court determined that Sastrom would

serve his federal sentence before completing his PSRB commitment,

the PSRB lodged a detainer with the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The

detainer requested that the BOP return Sastrom to the PSRB's

jurisdiction upon the completion of his federal sentence. See

Sastrom v. Conn. Psych. Sec. Rev. Bd., No. 21-640,

,

at *1 (D. Conn. Jan. 25, 2022).

In 2022 — several months before he was scheduled to be

released from federal custody — Sastrom applied for release from

his civil commitment (which was set to end in 2034). Although

1 This sentence was imposed in the first of the two cases. The sentence imposed in the second case was of shorter duration and was to run concurrently with the sentence in the first case. Consequently, the second sentence was subsumed by the first, and its details need not concern us.

- 4 - acknowledging recent improvements in Sastrom's compliance with

treatment, the PSRB denied Sastrom's request in August of 2022.

The PSRB concluded that Sastrom still "ha[d] a psychiatric

disability to the extent that his [d]ischarge or [c]onditional

release would constitute a danger to himself or others."

Notwithstanding its acknowledgement that Sastrom's compliance with

treatment had been "recently improved," the PSRB ordered him

confined — upon his discharge from federal custody — in a maximum-

security setting, specifically, Whiting Forensic Division

(Whiting), a psychiatric hospital in Connecticut.2

On September 8, 2022, the probation office requested a

status conference in Sastrom's federal criminal case. The

probation office's apparent goal was to seek modification of

Sastrom's supervised release conditions with a view toward

requiring him to report directly to Whiting upon his release from

federal custody. The district court (Saris, J.) held a status

conference on September 16, 2022. Attorneys for the parties and

for the Attorney General of Connecticut were in attendance. Both

at the status conference and in a written opposition filed on

September 21, Sastrom's counsel asked that the court stay any

2Sastrom appealed the PSRB's 2022 decision. The Connecticut Superior Court denied his application for discharge from the PSRB's custody on February 20, 2024.

- 5 - decision on a proposed modification while the PSRB civil commitment

decision was still being litigated in Connecticut.

The district court rejected Sastrom's request, stating

at the hearing that it would not "decide [Sastrom's] mental health

status through the auspices of a supervised release proceeding."

Consistent with this view, the district court issued an order on

September 22, 2022. In that order, the court directed Sastrom,

upon his release from federal custody, to "report directly to the

Whiting Forensic Hospital (Connecticut), in accordance with" the

PSRB's civil commitment order. The court further ordered that

Sastrom's term of supervised release would run concurrently with

his civil commitment. And if Sastrom was released from his PSRB

commitment during his term of supervised release, he would then be

obliged to report to the probation office.

Sastrom was released from federal custody on September

27, 2022. His term of supervised release commenced at that time,

and he has since reported to Whiting. On October 4, 2022, he filed

a timely notice of appeal of the district court's September 22

order. In his appellate brief, Sastrom claims that the district

court abused its discretion by modifying his supervised release

conditions and requiring him to report to Whiting.

B

Normally, our account of the travel of the case would

end here. But certain subsequent events have raised questions

- 6 - concerning this court's continuing jurisdiction over Sastrom's

appeal. On November 4, 2022, the probation office requested that

the district court transfer Sastrom's case to the District of

Connecticut. Neither Sastrom nor the government objected to the

transfer, and on November 9, the district court ordered the

transfer of Sastrom's case to the District of Connecticut. The

court acted pursuant to

, which authorizes a

district court to "transfer jurisdiction over a probationer or

person on supervised release to the district court for any other

district to which the person is required to proceed as a condition

of his probation or release, or is permitted to proceed."

Sastrom's case was docketed in the District of Connecticut on

December 21, 2022.

II

In this venue, Sastrom argues that we should vacate the

September 22 transfer order because the district court abused its

discretion in that it "failed to consider the factors enumerated

in

(e) before modifying [his] conditions of

supervised release" and overlooked "copious evidence" germane to

these factors indicating that he should not have been returned to

Connecticut. Sastrom insists that we should instruct the

Massachusetts district court to request that the District of

Connecticut transfer the case back to the Massachusetts district

- 7 - court so that the Massachusetts district court may hold a new

hearing regarding Sastrom's supervised release conditions.

The government demurs. To begin, it offers several

reasons why we lack jurisdiction to reach the merits of Sastrom's

appeal. The government adds that — even if we reach the merits of

Sastrom's appeal — the district court acted well within the

encincture of its discretion.

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. See

United States v. Rydle,

(1st Cir. 2023). Where,

as here, a jurisdictional question looms, that question must be

addressed before any relief can be granted. See Steel Co. v.

Citizens for a Better Env't,

(1998); Harris v.

Univ. of Mass. Lowell,

, 191 n.7 (1st Cir. 2022).

Accordingly, we start with the two jurisdictional arguments that

the government has advanced.

A

The government first contends that this case is

constitutionally moot because Sastrom has already reported to

Whiting and "there is no apparent basis for this [c]ourt to order

his release from state custody." Therefore, the government argues,

there is no "effectual relief" for us to provide with respect to

the challenged order.

Our analysis begins with constitutional bedrock. "A

case that becomes moot at any point during the proceedings is 'no

- 8 - longer a "Case" or "Controversy" for purposes of Article III.'"

United States v. Sanchez-Gomez,

(2018)

(quoting Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc.,

(2013)). We

have held that a case becomes moot when the court is incapable of

affording meaningful relief, that is, relief that will ameliorate

the harm alleged. See Gulf of Me. Fishermen's All.,

. Such relief need not be "fully satisfactory." Church of

Scientology of Cal. v. United States,

(1992). The

"power to effectuate a partial remedy . . . is sufficient to

prevent [a] case from being moot."

"As 'long as the parties

have a concrete interest, however small, in the outcome of the

litigation, the case is not moot.'" Chafin v. Chafin,

(2013) (quoting Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int'l Union, Local

1000,

(2012)).

We recognize that the unique circumstances of Sastrom's

case constrain our ability to remedy his alleged injury. The time

Sastrom has already spent at Whiting cannot be recaptured, and it

does not appear that the district court can simply order his

release from state custody. Even so, we cannot say that Sastrom

has no "concrete interest, however small, in the outcome of the

litigation."

Our decision in United States v. Reyes-Barreto is

instructive. See

(1st Cir. 2022). There, the

defendant challenged the reasonableness of his prison sentence and

- 9 - was released from incarceration during the pendency of his appeal,

at which point he began serving a term of supervised release. See

. The government argued that the case was rendered

moot by the defendant's release, inasmuch as the allegedly

unreasonable prison term had already been served. See

.

We disagreed, holding that the defendant "absolutely ha[d] a stake

in the outcome of [his] appeal" because, "[i]f we were to determine

that his incarcerative sentence was unreasonable, he could seek

equitable relief" such as an early termination of his supervised

release or a modification of its terms.

. So it is

here: if we were to hold that the district court abused its

discretion when it ordered Sastrom to report to Whiting as a

condition of his supervised release, and the district court on

remand were to hold that its modification of Sastrom's supervised

release terms was inappropriate after consideration of the

relevant factors, Sastrom could move for equitable relief by way

of a reduction of his supervised release term. Such relief could

be meaningful to Sastrom if he were to be released from state

custody prior to the end of his federal supervised release term,

which currently ends in September of 2025. This window of

potential relief signifies that Sastrom's appeal is not moot under

Article III.

- 10 - B

The government further contends that because this case

has been transferred to the Connecticut district court, which is

under the jurisdiction of the Second Circuit, we lack statutory

jurisdiction to hear the appeal. Sastrom responds by arguing that

the district court's order purporting to transfer his case to the

Connecticut district court was a "dead letter" because it was

issued after a notice of appeal had already been filed and depended

on the propriety of the challenged district court order. We hold

that, regardless of whether the district court's transfer to the

Connecticut district court was appropriate, the transfer did not

strip us of statutory jurisdiction to review a pre-transfer order.

The government posits that we lack statutory

jurisdiction to review the challenged order because the statute

under which Sastrom's case was transferred from Massachusetts to

Connecticut district court authorizes the "court to which

jurisdiction is transferred . . . to exercise all powers" related

to supervised release.

. Consequently, the

government says, "the transferee court presides over every facet

of supervised release, even with respect to events that predated

the transfer order."

The government is on sound ground in asserting that when

a case is transferred under

, the transferee

court's jurisdiction generally includes facets of supervised

- 11 - release related to events predating the transfer order — for

example, a transferee court has authority "to revoke a term of a

defendant's supervised release for violations committed prior to

the transfer of jurisdiction." United States v. Adams,

(6th Cir. 2013); see United States v. King,

(9th Cir. 2010). None of the cases cited by the

government, though, addresses whether the appellate court

embracing the transferor court lacks jurisdiction to review a pre-

transfer order. See, e.g., United States v. Clark,

(8th Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (holding that transferor

court, after transfer, no longer had jurisdiction to rule on a

pre-transfer motion filed by defendant).

Although there is no case law in our circuit that

directly answers this question in the context of

,

we have held with respect to a transfer under

(a)

that we retained jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal from

a pre-transfer order by the transferor court even though the case

had since been transferred to an out-of-circuit district. See

Matrix Grp. Ltd. v. Rawlings Sporting Goods Co.,

(1st Cir. 2004). In Matrix Group, we explained that because

appeals from a district court must be taken "to the court of

appeals for the circuit embracing the district,"

(1), the appellant's right to appeal a pre-transfer

interlocutory order could "only be realized in the First Circuit."

- 12 - Matrix Grp.,

. We further held that because the

relevant appeal was filed before the case was docketed by the

transferee court, "this court had already acquired appellate

jurisdiction before the transfer was effective," and jurisdiction

was not terminated by the subsequent transfer.

(quoting Lou

v. Belzberg,

(9th Cir. 1987)).

Although Sastrom's case involves a different transfer

statute and a final rather than interlocutory order, we think that

our reasoning in Matrix Group applies to the situation at hand.

Sastrom's right to appeal the challenged order can be realized

only by our review, because the language of

(1)

does not permit a Massachusetts district court order to be reviewed

by a circuit not embracing the district. Cf. Jones v. InfoCure

Corp.,

(7th Cir. 2002) (holding "that an

otherwise appealable order remains appealable even if a transfer

is ordered at a later time" and noting that, "given the language

of

[,] it is doubtful that the court of appeals in

the transferee area could exercise jurisdiction over an appealable

interlocutory order entered by a district court outside its

region"). Here, moreover — as in Matrix Group — we acquired

appellate jurisdiction before the transfer took effect. Thus, we

hold that we have statutory jurisdiction to hear Sastrom's appeal.

- 13 - III

Under ordinary circumstances, we would now reach the

merits of Sastrom's appeal. But because of the unusual procedural

posture of his case and the practical hurdles that Sastrom must

clear in obtaining any remedy, we affirm without reaching the

merits.

These practical hurdles stem from the fact that

Sastrom's case has already been docketed in Connecticut district

court and has proceeded there. See Probation Form 12B Petition

for Modification of Supervision with Consent of the Offender,

United States v. Sastrom, No. 3:08-00240 (D. Conn. Nov. 2, 2023).

"Once [such a] transfer is effected, the transferor court no longer

has jurisdiction to exercise the powers that may be exercised by

the transferee court." United States v. El Herman,

(8th Cir. 2020); see King,

(explaining

that under section 3605's "statutory structure, the transferee

court steps into the shoes of the transferor court").

Consequently, we cannot simply remand this case for the

Massachusetts district court to reassess the challenged

modification to Sastrom's supervised release conditions because

the Massachusetts district court no longer has authority over his

supervised release. Nor can we order the Connecticut district

court to take any equivalent action because that court is part of

the Second Circuit, and we have no jurisdiction over it.

- 14 - To be sure, there is precedent in our circuit for

retrieving a case by means of informal mechanisms after it was

wrongfully transferred to a court outside of our jurisdiction. In

Forty Six Hundred LLC v. Cadence Education, LLC, we held that the

case had been erroneously remanded from federal district court to

state court.

(1st Cir. 2021). Because the case

had already proceeded in state court, we were "unable to identify

any formal procedural mechanism for [its] retrieval."

Nonetheless, we instructed the district court to "enlist the state

court's cooperation and restore the action to its own docket."

.

There are some similarities here: Sastrom's case has

already proceeded in Connecticut district court, and we cannot

identify any formal procedural mechanism for retrieving it. Were

we to find for Sastrom on the merits, we could follow Forty Six

Hundred's example and direct the district court to attempt to

enlist the Connecticut district court's cooperation to retrieve

his case.

We are not, however, obligated to provide such a

solution. "In some circumstances, a controversy, not actually

moot, is so attenuated that considerations of prudence and comity

for coordinate branches of government counsel the court to stay

its hand, and to withhold relief it has the power to grant."

Chamber of Com. v. United States Dep't of Energy,

,

- 15 - 291 (D.C. Cir. 1980); see 13B Charles Alan Wright, et al., Federal

Practice and Procedure § 3533.1 (3d ed.) ("Remedial discretion is

often relied upon to determine that the prospective benefit of an

injunction, declaratory judgment, or other specific remedy is too

slight to justify decision."). This is such a case. The only

remedy we can provide Sastrom is an order directing the district

court to attempt to retrieve this case so that it may hold another

hearing about Sastrom's supervised release conditions and, if that

court determines that the prior modification order was improper,

grant an equitable reduction in or end to Sastrom's term of federal

supervised release. The likelihood of this process providing any

practical benefit to Sastrom is remote — it would only affect his

circumstances if he were released from state custody prior to the

end of his period of supervised release. His release from state

custody before then (September of 2025) appears particularly

unlikely following the Connecticut Superior Court's recent denial

of his application for discharge from the PSRB's custody. See

supra note 2. We add, moreover, that the execution of this

remedial process would require expending significant judicial

resources. Thus, we exercise our remedial discretion and decline

to grant this remedy.

We add that this case is distinguishable from Forty Six

Hundred in a key respect. In Forty Six Hundred, we emphasized

that "there [was] no question of waiver or estoppel" because the

- 16 - appellant had "at all times acted expeditiously to preserve its

right to a federal forum," including by asking the district court

to stay its remand order and, when that request was denied, asking

the First Circuit for a stay.

. In contrast,

Sastrom did not object to, request a stay of, or appeal the

district court's order transferring his case to the Connecticut

district court, and his argument that the transfer was improper

was raised for the first time in his reply brief. See Sandstrom

v. ChemLawn Corp.,

(1st Cir. 1990) (holding

argument waived because it "was not made to the district court or

in appellant's opening brief, surfacing only in his reply brief").

Consequently, we are not inclined to follow the path of Forty Six

Hundred and to direct the district court to attempt to retrieve

Sastrom's case from Connecticut.

Viewing the matter as a whole, we see little benefit to

shuttling Sastrom's case back and forth between district courts.

Sastrom has less than two years of supervised release remaining,

and — even if his federal sentence were terminated at this moment

— his liberty would still be constrained by his civil commitment.

As we already have stated, the Connecticut Superior Court recently

issued a decision refusing to discharge Sastrom from his civil

commitment. Although Sastrom may still pursue other avenues for

challenging his commitment, the Connecticut Superior Court's

recent denial of his latest entreaty makes it unlikely that he

- 17 - will secure his release from commitment before his sentence in

this case is already near or at its end.

IV

We need go no further. We will not order the district

court to retrieve jurisdiction of Sastrom's case and, thus, we

will not disturb the existing situation.

Affirmed.

- 18 -