United States v. Cope

Case: 25-50658 Document: 79-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/19/2026

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 25-50658 Summary Calendar FILED ____________ August 19, 2026 Lyle W. Cayce United States of America, Clerk Plaintiff—Appellee, versus Robert Cope, Defendant—Appellant. ______________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 5:23-CR-537-1 ______________________________ Before Smith, Southwick, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam: * Robert Cope was convicted of three counts of making a false statement in connection with the acquisition of a firearm and sentenced to concurrent 22-month terms of imprisonment, followed by concurrent three-year terms of supervised release (“SR”). During the pendency of this appeal, Cope’s SR was revoked, and he was sentenced to 10 months of imprisonment and months of SR.

Case: 25-50658 Document: 79-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/19/2026

No. 25-50658

Cope asserts that there is a conflict between the district court’s oral pronouncement of sentence and its original written judgment. Specifically, he contends that the original written judgment includes discretionary condi- tions of SR that were not orally pronounced or adopted, at sentencing, by reference from a presentence report or the Western District of Texas’s standing order. The government has moved to dismiss the appeal as moot because the challenged conditions were not included in the revocation judgment.

“In criminal cases . . . a defendant wishing to continue his appeals after the expiration of his sentence must suffer some ‘continuing injury’ or ‘collateral consequence’ sufficient to satisfy Article III.” United States v. Juvenile Male, 564 U.S. 932, 936 (2011). Where the defendant has challenged only his expired sentence, he has “the burden of identifying some ongoing collateral consequence that is traceable to the challenged portion of the sen- tence and likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Id. (internal quotation marks, modification, and citation omitted).

Because Cope is no longer subject to the discretionary conditions of SR that he challenges on appeal and fails to identify any ongoing collateral consequence, the government’s motion is GRANTED, and the appeal is DISMISSED as moot.