PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

______________

No. 11-4523

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

KELLY L. HUFF,

 Appellant

______________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(D. C. No. 06-cr-00029)

District Judge: Honorable Kim R. Gibson

_______________________

Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

October 23, 2012

Before: HARDIMAN, GREENAWAY, JR., and 

VANASKIE, Circuit Judges.

(Opinion Filed: January 9, 2013)
2

Donovan J. Cocas

Stephanie L. Haines

Rebecca R. Haywood

Office of United States Attorney

700 Grant Street

Suite 4000

Pittsburgh, PA 15219-0000

Attorneys for Plaintiff-Appellee

Chris R. Eyster

Suite 304

100 Ross Street

Pittsburgh, PA 15219-2013

Attorney for Defendant-Appellant

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OPINION OF THE COURT

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HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.

Kelly Huff appeals the District Court’s judgment of 

sentence following the revocation of her supervised release. 

Huff contends that her sentence of ten months’ incarceration 

was substantively unreasonable. Because Huff was 

unconditionally released from custody on August 31, 2012, we 

will dismiss her appeal as moot.

I

In July 2008, Huff pleaded guilty to conspiracy to 

distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base and 500 grams or 
3

more of powder cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. The 

District Court sentenced her to twelve months’ imprisonment to 

be followed by three years of supervised release. Because Huff 

already had spent more than a year in prison while awaiting 

trial, her period of supervised release began on July 22, 2008.

In August 2010, the United States Probation Office filed 

a Petition on Supervised Release in which it informed the 

District Court that Huff had violated the conditions of her 

supervised release by failing to attend mental health treatment, 

failing to notify the Probation Office about contact with law 

enforcement, and failing to file monthly supervision reports for 

four consecutive months. Huff waived a hearing and agreed to 

be placed in home detention for three months, and the court 

entered an order to that effect.

In April 2011, the Probation Office filed a second 

Petition on Supervised Release after Huff was charged with 

driving under the influence, endangering the welfare of children, 

improper vehicle child restraint, public drunkenness, and failure 

to stop at a red light. The Petition also stated that Huff had been 

non-compliant with other aspects of the terms of her 

supervision.

On December 6, 2011, the District Court held a hearing 

to consider the alleged violations, which Huff conceded. Huff 

and her counsel urged the Court to impose home supervision so 

Huff could continue to care for her two children. Citing Huff’s 

continued inability or unwillingness to comply with the 

conditions of her supervision, the District Court denied Huff’s 

request for leniency. Instead, the District Court revoked Huff’s 

supervised release and sentenced her to ten months’ 

incarceration with no subsequent period of supervised release.
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Huff filed a notice of appeal on December 7, 2011. She 

argues that her sentence was substantively unreasonable. 

Significantly, however, Huff was released from custody on 

August 31, 2012.

II

We begin, as we always do, with the question of 

jurisdiction. The federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, 

Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 

(1994), and our power to render judgment is circumscribed by 

the Article III requirement that a live case or controversy exist 

throughout all stages of litigation, including appellate review, 

see U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; Lewis v. Cont’l Bank Corp., 494 

U.S. 472, 477 (1990). This requirement is satisfied when the 

parties “continue to have a ‘personal stake in the outcome’ of 

the lawsuit.” Lewis, 494 U.S. at 478 (quoting Los Angeles v. 

Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 101 (1983)). When the parties lose their 

personal stake in the outcome, the case becomes moot and must 

be dismissed, even if it once was a live controversy at an earlier 

stage of the proceedings. See Davis v. FEC, 554 U.S. 724, 732–

33 (2008).

If Huff were still serving her ten-month sentence, or if 

she were still subject to a term of supervised release, no 

mootness concerns would exist. See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 

U.S. 1, 7 (1998); United States v. Jackson, 523 F.3d 234, 241 

(3d Cir. 2008) (“[I]f a defendant who is serving a term of 

supervised release elects to challenge only his sentence of 

supervised release, he has raised a live case or controversy under 

Article III such that a court will have jurisdiction over his 

appeal.”). But “[o]nce the convict’s sentence has expired . . . 

some concrete and continuing injury other than the now-ended 

incarceration or parole—some ‘collateral consequence’ of the 
5

conviction—must exist if the suit is to be maintained.” Spencer, 

523 U.S. at 7; see also United States v. Kissinger, 309 F.3d 179, 

181 (3d Cir. 2002) (“[O]nce a litigant is unconditionally 

released from criminal confinement, the litigant must prove that 

he or she suffers a continuing injury from the collateral 

consequences attaching to the challenged act.”).

In Sibron v. New York, the Supreme Court carved a 

narrow exception to this rule by allowing the presumption of 

collateral consequences when a litigant challenges a criminal 

conviction. 392 U.S. 40, 55–56 (1968). However, in Spencer v. 

Kemna, the Court held that Sibron’s presumption of collateral 

consequences does not apply to parole revocations. 523 U.S. at 

12. Likewise, in United States v. Kissinger, we extended 

Spencerto an appeal involving a probation violation because we 

could discern no “distinction between parole and probation that 

would justify distinguishing Spencer.” 309 F.3d at 181. In the 

years since Kissinger, panels of our Court extended Spencer to 

revocations of supervised release,1

 1 See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 373 F. App’x 186, 

187 (3d Cir. 2010); United States v. Ebersole, 263 F. App’x 251, 

254 & n.5 (3d Cir. 2008); United States v. Robinson, 39 F. 

App’x 723, 725 (3d Cir. 2002); see also United States v. 

McHugh, 389 F. App’x 127, 131 (3d Cir. 2010) (applying 

Spencer and Kissingerto the supervised release context without 

discussion); United States v. Simmons, 353 F. App’x 689, 690

(3d Cir. 2009) (applying Kissinger without discussion).

and we suggested in dicta in 

United States v. Jackson that Spencer applied in this context, see 

Jackson, 523 F.3d at 238, 241. Today, we hold precedentially 

that Sibron’s presumption of collateral consequences does not 

apply to supervised release revocations. Accordingly, consistent 

with Spencer, a litigant who is unconditionally released from 
6

custody must show that she will, in fact, suffer collateral 

consequences from the supervised release revocation to present 

a live case or controversy.

This conclusion follows from our holding in Kissinger, 

from the rulings of our sister circuits, and from Congress’s 

intent in replacing the parole regime with supervised release. In 

Kissinger, we implied that Spencer may be applied to 

revocations of supervised release because we acknowledged and 

relied upon decisions of other courts of appeals that applied 

Spencerin that context. See Kissinger, 309 F.3d at 181; see also

United States v. Meyers, 200 F.3d 715, 721 n.2 (10th Cir. 2000) 

(“This court can discern no relevant differences between parole 

and supervised release which would militate against the 

applicability of Spencer.”); United States v. Clark, 193 F.3d 

845, 847–48 (5th Cir. 1999) (per curiam) (applying Spencer and 

dismissing as moot a challenge to the district court’s extension 

of supervised release); United States v. Probber, 170 F.3d 345, 

348–49 (2d Cir. 1999) (applying Spencer and dismissing as 

moot a challenge to the revocation of supervised release). 

Subsequently, other courts of appeals also have concluded that 

Spencer extends to supervised release revocations. See, e.g., 

United States v. Hardy, 545 F.3d 280, 284 (4th Cir. 2008); 

United States v. Duclos, 382 F.3d 62, 66 (1st Cir. 2004).

In Kissinger, we also discussed the similarities between 

probation and supervised release, including the fact that both are 

imposed by the judiciary, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(a) (supervised 

release); 18 U.S.C. § 3565(a) (probation), revocation in both 

contexts is heard by the judiciary, see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3) 

(supervised release); 18 U.S.C. § 3565(a)(2) (probation), and the 

conditions the judiciary is permitted to impose are identical for 

probation and supervised release, see United States v. Evans, 
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155 F.3d 245, 250–51 (3d Cir. 1998) (comparing 18 U.S.C. § 

3563(b) (probation), with 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) (supervised 

release)). Kissinger, 309 F.3d at 181.

Finally, extending Spencer’s rule from the parole context 

to the supervised release context makes sense in light of 

Congress’s decision to “eliminate[] most forms of parole in 

favor of supervised release” in the Sentencing Reform Act of 

1984. Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 696–97 (2000); 

see also Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395, 400 

(1991).

* * *

In sum, we agree with our sister courts of appeals that 

collateral consequences should not be presumed in cases, such 

as this one, that challenge revocations of supervised release. 

Huff has not argued that she will, in fact, suffer any collateral 

consequences. It follows, therefore, that Huff’s unconditional 

release from prison renders this case moot. Accordingly, we 

must dismiss her appeal for lack of jurisdiction.