[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 22-13142

Non-Argument Calendar

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

JOHN DAVID CALANDRA, 

Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 8:04-cr-00104-JSM-E_J-1

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2 Opinion of the Court 22-13142

Before JORDAN, GRANT, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

John Calandra appeals the district court’s denial of his 

motion to be removed from Florida’s sex offender registry. 

Following Calandra’s late appeal, this Court remanded for the 

district court to determine whether Calandra could show excusable 

neglect. The district court concluded that he could, and we agree. 

We also agree with the court’s conclusion that it lacked power to 

grant the requested relief.

I.

In 2004, a grand jury charged John Calandra with possession 

of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B). 

Calandra pleaded guilty, and the district court sentenced him to 30 

months’ imprisonment and 3 years of supervised release. As a 

condition of supervised release, the court ordered Calandra to 

“register with the sex offender registration agency” in his home 

state. 

Eighteen years later, in 2002, Calandra filed a pro se motion 

requesting that the district court remove him from Florida’s sex 

offender registry. The district court denied the motion, explaining 

that, as Calandra had completed his term of supervised release, the 

court no longer had the authority to determine his sex offender 

status for the state in which he resides. After Calandra appealed 

that decision, the government moved to dismiss the appeal as

untimely. Calandra had failed to file his notice of appeal within the 

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22-13142 Opinion of the Court 3

required fourteen days. But since he filed his appeal within thirty 

days of the deadline, we treated his appeal as a motion for 

extension of time and remanded to the district court for a 

determination of good cause or excusable neglect. See United States 

v. Ward, 696 F.2d 1315, 1317–18 (11th Cir. 1983). 

On remand, the district court concluded that Calandra had 

shown excusable neglect warranting an extension of the appeal 

period. Calandra filed the appeal pro se, mistakenly believing the 

deadline to be thirty days, while suffering from health issues that 

make the day-to-day management of tasks a great difficulty. The 

district court found that Calandra had not acted in bad faith, that 

the government would not suffer any prejudice from allowing the 

appeal to continue, and that granting an extension was in the 

interest of efficient judicial administration. 

II.

We review the district court’s finding of excusable neglect 

for abuse of discretion. Advanced Estimating Sys., Inc. v. Riney, 77 

F.3d 1322, 1325 (11th Cir. 1996). “This Court previously has 

recognized that the phrase ‘excusable neglect’ may include, when 

appropriate, late filings caused by inadvertence, mistake, or 

carelessness under certain circumstances.” Locke v. SunTrust Bank, 

484 F.3d 1343, 1346 (11th Cir. 2007). Calandra—due to his health 

and age, and with no ill will—missed the appeal deadline. The 

district court here weighed the proper factors and did not abuse its 

discretion when it found excusable neglect for missing the 

deadline. 

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4 Opinion of the Court 22-13142

Despite Calandra’s excusable neglect for missing the filing 

deadline, the district court properly determined that it was 

incapable of granting Calandra his requested relief. As “courts of 

limited jurisdiction,” federal courts “possess only that power 

authorized by Constitution and statute.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life 

Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). Indeed, it is “presumed 

that a cause lies outside this limited jurisdiction, and the burden of 

establishing the contrary rests upon the party asserting 

jurisdiction.” Id. (citation omitted). 

Calandra has not met this burden. Florida’s sex offender 

registry is managed by the state, and Calandra cites no authority 

under which a federal court may order a registrant removed from 

it. He points to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, 

but that Act only requires defendants to register with the 

appropriate registry in their jurisdiction. See 34 U.S.C. § 20901, et 

seq. It does not authorize federal courts to manage those state-run 

registries. See id. That the district court could once order Calandra 

to register with a state does not mean that it can now order Florida 

to remove Calandra from its registry. 

Because Calandra did not identify any grant of power by 

which federal courts may direct states to remove defendants from 

their sex offender registries, the district court lacked jurisdiction to 

entertain his claim. See Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 377. As a technical 

matter, because it was without jurisdiction, the district court 

should have dismissed the case instead of denying the motion. Cf.

Cani v. United States, 331 F.3d 1210, 1216 (11th Cir. 2003). Here, 

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22-13142 Opinion of the Court 5

though, that is a distinction without a difference. We therefore

construe the court’s order denying Calandra’s motion as a dismissal 

for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

* * *

With this understanding, we DENY the government’s 

motion to dismiss the appeal as untimely, and we AFFIRM the 

district court’s order.

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