United States v. Williams

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 07-3817
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
ANTHONY LAMAR WILLIAMS,
Appellant
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Criminal No. 02-cr-00444)
District Judge: Honorable James T. Giles
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
March 26, 2010
Before: RENDELL and FUENTES, Circuit Judges,
and KUGLER, District Judge*.
(Filed :April 8, 2010)
OPINION OF THE COURT
__________________
* Honorable Robert B. Kugler, Judge of the United States District Court for
the District of New Jersey, sitting by designation.
RENDELL, Circuit Judge.
Anthony Lamar Williams appeals from the District Court’s revocation of his
supervised release, contending that there was insufficient evidence to support his
violation, and that his above-guideline sentence was unreasonable. We will dismiss
Williams’s appeal as moot because he has been unconditionally released from
confinement.
I.
On July 25, 2002, Williams was indicted for one count of bank fraud and seven
counts of passing forged U.S. Treasury checks. On October 4, 2004, he was sentenced to
nineteen months in prison and five years of supervised release, and he was ordered to pay
a $100 fine, $4,557.38 in restitution and an $800 special assessment. After his supervised
release began, he repeatedly failed to report to his probation officer and then absconded.
At his violation hearing, Williams blamed his behavior on a drug problem. Accordingly,
the District Court continued his supervised release with the added condition that he
participate in inpatient drug treatment.
Williams continued his pattern of poor compliance by failing to report on thirteen
additional occasions, failing to submit monthly reports, failing to appear for a prearranged
home visit, testing positive for morphine, failing to report for a court-ordered inpatient
drug treatment program, and absconding from supervision. After receiving notice of a
warrant for his arrest for violating his supervised release, he failed to report to his
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probation officer and remained a fugitive until he was arrested for a local burglary charge.
This conduct led to the violation of supervised release at issue on this appeal.
The statutory maximum for Williams’s multiple violations was thirty-six months
of imprisonment and five years of supervised release less any time served in custody. The
Sentencing Guidelines recommended a range of seven to thirteen months of
imprisonment. The District Court sentenced Williams to thirty months of imprisonment
(with credit for time previously served by Williams while awaiting resolution of the
proceedings), reimposed the fine, restitution, and special assessment, and explicitly noted
that “[u]pon release from the Bureau of Prisons, defendant’s federal supervised release is
terminated.” App. 16. Williams served his sentence and was released from custody on
January 23, 2009.
II.
We have jurisdiction over this timely appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We
exercise plenary review over the question of whether we have jurisdiction to consider the
appeal. In re Blatstein, 192 F.3d 88, 94 (3d Cir. 1999).
The Government argues that because Williams has been released from all
confinement, the appeal is moot and must be dismissed. We agree. Williams’s appeal
was docketed in September 28, 2007. There was extensive delay in the briefing by both
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sides.1 The matter was fully briefed and submitted for our determination on March 26,
2010. Meanwhile, as noted above, Williams was released from custody over a year ago,
in January 2009.
In Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1 (1998), the Supreme Court held that a challenge
to a parole revocation was moot because the defendant completed the term of
imprisonment resulting from the parole violation. In United States v. Kissinger, 309 F.3d
179, 181-82 (3d Cir. 2002), we explicitly extended Spencer to an appeal involving a
probation violation. We also implicitly acknowledged that Spencer may be applied to
violations of supervised release, because we acknowledged and relied upon decisions of
other Courts of Appeals that applied Spencer to supervised release proceedings:
Several courts have applied Spencer to the revocation of supervised release.
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).
Kissinger, 309 F.3d at 181.
While in Spencer the Supreme Court noted that the appeal may not be moot if the
1
Williams’s counsel sought time extensions totaling 168 days, and eventually filed
a brief on October 26, 2009. The government also sought extensions of time to file its
brief totaling thirty-seven days.
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appellant affirmatively states collateral consequences of the conviction in the record, 523
U.S. at 10-11, Williams did not file a reply brief or otherwise challenge the Government’s
assertion of mootness. He has not urged the existence of any collateral consequences.2
Given our reasoning in Spencer, we conclude that Williams’s appeal is moot. He
completed his prison term on January 23, 2009, and has not alleged any collateral
consequences. Accordingly, we will enter an order dismissing Williams’s appeal as
moot.
2
Nor is there any suggestion elsewhere in the record that there are collateral
consequences that would render the matter not moot.
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