Court Opinion

ID: 9364681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-19 22:00:55.09505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:39.813819
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                     For the First Circuit

Nos. 21-1016
     22-1351

                    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Appellee,

                               v.

                          DANNY RYDLE,

                      Defendant, Appellant.

          APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                    FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE

        [Hon. John A. Woodcock, Jr., U.S. District Judge]

                             Before

                  Kayatta, Selya, and Thompson,
                         Circuit Judges.

     Robert C. Andrews and Robert C. Andrews Esquire P.C. on brief
for appellant.
     Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, and Noah Falk,
Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.

                        January 19, 2023
            SELYA, Circuit Judge.    The Constitution limits the power

of the federal courts to the adjudication of live cases and

controversies.    See U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; see also Sundaram

v. Briry, LLC (In re Sundaram), 9 F.4th 16, 20 (1st Cir. 2021)

("Federal courts lack jurisdiction to adjudicate moot cases.").

When a case, though live when brought, loses its vitality while

pending on appeal, that constitutional limit requires the appeal

to be dismissed as moot.        See, e.g., In re Sundaram, 9 F.4th at

21.     "At that point, any opinion that a reviewing court might

provide would be merely advisory."        Id.   That is the situation

here.

            In this instance, defendant-appellant Danny Rydle sought

relief — in the form of retention of a seal of judicial records —

up until the occurrence of a particular event (the expiration of

his sentence).    Because that event has now occurred, we hold that

these consolidated appeals must be dismissed as moot.

                                    I

            We set the stage.    On May 3, 2019, the appellant pleaded

guilty in the United States District Court for the District of

Maine to one count of theft from a licensed firearms dealer, see

18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 922(u), 924(i), and one count of conspiracy to

commit theft from that dealer, see id. §§ 371, 922(u).     On October

8, 2020, the appellant was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of

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time served and seven days, to be followed by a three-year term of

supervised release.

          During the appellant's brief term of incarceration, the

district court sealed portions of the record pertaining to his

cooperation   with   the   government.      In    accordance    with   local

practice, though, the court ordered that the seal be lifted once

the appellant's imprisonment ended.        The appellant objected on the

ground that unsealing the record would place him in danger should

he violate the terms of his supervised release and be resentenced

to prison.    He thus requested that the seal remain in place until

he completed his sentence in its entirety, that is, until the

expiration of his term of supervised release.         The district court

issued an order overruling the appellant's objection but left the

seal in place while the appellant appealed.

          During     the   pendency   of   that   appeal,    the   appellant

violated the terms of his supervised release.               On December 10,

2021, the district court revoked his release and sentenced him to

a new three-month prison term, to be followed by a new twenty-

four-month term of supervised release.             At that juncture, we

remanded the case to the district court (albeit retaining appellate

jurisdiction) for the limited purpose of clarifying what effect,

if any, the revocation would have on the district court's prior

order to lift the seal.      On January 5, 2022, the district court,

by indicative ruling, ordered that the relevant portions of the

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record would remain sealed during the appellant's reincarceration,

with the caveat that the district court would revisit the issue

upon the appellant's release.       Accordingly, we remanded the case

to the district court for further proceedings in accordance with

that indicative ruling.    See Fed. R. App. P. 12.1(b).      Once again,

we retained appellate jurisdiction.

           Soon thereafter, the appellant was released yet again on

supervision.     In response, the district court — after soliciting

further briefing from the parties — reinstated its original order,

from which a second appeal was then taken.

           The two appeals were consolidated.       Before they could be

adjudicated, however, the appellant violated the conditions of his

supervised release for a second time.             On July 14, 2022, the

appellant's supervised release was revoked, but his sentencing was

continued until a later date.       On November 2, 2022, the district

court sentenced the appellant to a term of imprisonment of time

served,   with   no   supervised   release   to    follow.   Since    the

appellant's sentence was over and done with, we invited the

appellant to show cause as to whether developments in the district

court had mooted the pending appeals.        The appellant responded,

and the question of mootness is now before us.

                                    II

           The Constitution limits the jurisdiction of the federal

courts to the adjudication of "Cases" and "Controversies."           U.S.

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Const. art. III, § 2.      We may therefore adjudicate cases only as

long as "an actual controversy [is] extant at all stages of

review."   Arizonans for Off. Eng. v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 67

(1997) (quoting Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 401 (1975)).              If

"the issues presented are no longer 'live,'" then the case is moot,

and we must dismiss for want of jurisdiction.             Harris v. Univ. of

Mass. Lowell, 43 F.4th 187, 191 (1st Cir. 2022) (quoting Chafin v.

Chafin, 568 U.S. 165, 172 (2013)); see In re Sundaram, 9 F.4th at

20.

           So it is here.         The appellant challenged the district

court's order on the ground that unsealing portions of the record

while he served his term of supervised release posed a threat to

his safety should he violate the terms of that release and find

himself incarcerated once again.          But given that the appellant's

sentence   is    now   complete    and   that   he   is   no   longer   either

incarcerated or subject to supervision, there is no longer a live

issue present in the case.

           The    appellant   acknowledges      as   much,     admitting   that

"avoiding the mootness doctrine would require the disregard of

prior precedent."      Nevertheless, he opposes the dismissal of his

appeals despite what he characterizes as "insurmountable hurdles"

to the contrary.

           The appellant's efforts to show that his appeals still

present a live controversy are futile.               To begin, he fails to

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identify any exception to the mootness doctrine that applies here.

Although   he   cites   to   cases    that   address   whether   collateral

consequences attendant to a revocation of parole might serve as an

exception to the mootness doctrine, see Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S.

1 (1998); State v. McElveen, 802 A.2d 74 (Conn. 2002), his appeals

in no way challenge the district court's serial revocations of his

supervised release.     Nor does he contend that he will incur any

collateral consequences as a result of the unsealing of the records

at this time:     the harms limned in the appeals themselves were

fully dissipated once he was freed from supervision, and he does

not point to any other cognizable harms.

           Struggling to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,

the appellant directs our attention to the decision in Black v.

Hathaway, 616 F. App'x 650 (5th Cir. 2015) (per curiam), an

unpublished and nonprecedential case from the Fifth Circuit.           That

opinion addresses whether the "favorable-termination rule" (which

requires that a plaintiff alleging unconstitutional conviction or

imprisonment under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 show a successful direct or

collateral challenge to the underlying criminal proceeding, see

Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486-87 (1994)) applies in cases

where federal habeas relief is no longer available.              See Black,

616 F. App'x at 652-54.      The relevance of that opinion to the issue

at hand is unclear, and the appellant does not further elaborate.

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For aught that appears, the opinion in Black does not advance the

appellant's cause.

          The short of it is that the expiration of the appellant's

sentence has extinguished any live controversy, thus requiring

dismissal of the appellant's appeals as moot.    The appellant has

failed to show cause to the contrary.

                               III

          We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above,

the appeals are

Dismissed.

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