Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Jose Tamayo-Amaya pleaded guilty to illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). The district court sentenced him to four months in prison and one year of supervised release. His release conditions required him to report to the U.S. Probation Office within 72 hours and to report or surrender to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and comply with its instructions.
After Tamayo-Amaya allegedly failed to report to either office, the Probation Office petitioned to revoke his supervised release. The district court found that he violated both conditions, revoked supervised release, and sentenced him to four months in custody followed by eight months of supervised release. He appealed, but completed the prison term and acknowledged that the new supervised-release term expired on July 29, 2026.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal as moot. Once a challenged supervised-release sentence expires, the defendant must identify an ongoing collateral consequence traceable to that sentence that a favorable ruling would likely redress.
Tamayo-Amaya had completed both the four-month prison sentence and the eight-month supervised-release term. He identified no continuing collateral consequence and did not respond after the government asserted that the appeal would become moot when supervision expired. The court therefore concluded that no live case or controversy remained and that it could grant no effective relief.
Key Takeaways
- An appeal challenging revocation of supervised release generally becomes moot after the resulting custody and supervision terms have expired.
- The defendant bears the burden of identifying a redressable, ongoing collateral consequence once supervised release ends.
- Because Tamayo-Amaya identified no such consequence, the Fifth Circuit lacked a live Article III controversy to decide.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that completing a revocation sentence can eliminate appellate jurisdiction even when the defendant timely appealed. A defendant seeking review after the sentence expires must identify a concrete continuing consequence that an appellate ruling could remedy.