Court Opinion

ID: 9404861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-26 17:00:50.925049+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:17.673163
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        JUN 26 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                       No.    21-50308

                Plaintiff-Appellee,             D.C. No. 2:11-cr-00623-GW-1

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
LIVIA DE DOS SANTOS PINHEIRO, AKA
Pinheiro, AKA Livia Pinheiro,

                Defendant-Appellant.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Central District of California
                    George H. Wu, District Judge, Presiding

                        Argued and Submitted June 8, 2023
                              Pasadena, California

Before: GRABER and OWENS, Circuit Judges, and TUNHEIM,** District Judge.

      Livia Santos Pinheiro, a non-U.S. citizen, appeals from the district court’s

denial of her motion for compassionate relief under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) to

modify her completed sentence because of resulting immigration consequences.

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The Honorable John R. Tunheim, United States District Judge for the
District of Minnesota, sitting by designation.
Pinheiro is not in custody; she filed for compassionate relief more than a year after

completing her term of supervised release and more than four years after

completing her term of incarceration. The district court denied her motion on the

ground that § 3582(c)(1)(A) does not authorize it to modify a sentence for a person

who is no longer in custody. As the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not

recount them here. We affirm.

       As an initial matter, the issue is not moot. We have jurisdiction when a case

presents a live “case or controversy” under Article III of the Constitution, meaning

that the plaintiff “must have suffered . . . an actual injury . . . likely to be redressed

by a favorable judicial decision.” Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 7 (1998) (citation

omitted). Although Pinheiro has completed her sentence, a challenge to a

conviction is not moot when a consequence of the conviction is the risk of

deportation. See Park v. California, 202 F.3d 1146, 1148 (9th Cir. 2000)

(“[Petitioner’s] release from prison does not moot his . . . petition. Because he

faces deportation, [petitioner] suffers actual consequences from his conviction.”

(citation omitted)).

       Turning to the merits of Pinheiro’s claim, we agree with the district court

that § 3582(c)(1)(A) does not permit the modification of a completed sentence.

We recently observed that “[t]he structure and terminology of the statute reflect[]

that only defendants in custody are eligible for relief.” United States v. Fower, 30

                                            2
F.4th 823, 826 (9th Cir. 2022) (emphasis added). While Fower concerned an

application for compassionate relief by a defendant who was not yet in custody of

the Bureau of Prisons, id. at 825, the same reasoning applies to those who have

finished serving their sentences. As Fower pointed out, the statutory text and

history indicate that an applicant must be in custody, and Supreme Court precedent

suggests that the provision should be interpreted narrowly. See id. at 826-27.

Because Pinheiro is no longer in custody, we affirm the district court’s decision to

deny compassionate relief.1

      AFFIRMED.

1
  We express no opinion on the validity of a writ of coram nobis under these
circumstances. We urge the district court to appoint new counsel to explore such
relief. See United States v. Kwan, 407 F.3d 1005, 1011-15, 1018 (9th Cir. 2005),
abrogated on other grounds by Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 369-70 (2010);
United States v. Chan, 792 F.3d 1151, 1152 (9th Cir. 2015).

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