United States v. Tomas Tapia-Marquez, United States of America v. Tomas Tapia-Marquez

We hold today that a criminal defendant, whose appeal of a judgment revoking his supervised release became moot when he was released from custody while the appeal was pending, is not entitled to vacatur of the judgment where existing precedent squarely foreclosed the only issue he raised in his appeal.

Factual and Procedural Background

In 2001, Tapia-Marquez was convicted of unlawful reentry after deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 . He was sentenced to 60 days imprisonment, followed by one year of supervised release. He was released from custody on April 12, 2001, and began serving his supervised release on that date. On May 23, 2001, he was removed to Mexico.

Six weeks later, while still on supervised release, Tapia-Marquez was arrested near the Calexico, California Port of Entry for making a false statement to a federal officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 . He pled guilty to that charge and was sentenced to six months imprisonment and three years of supervised release.

Tapia-Marquez’s guilty plea to the new charge triggered proceedings to revoke his supervised release in the first case. He moved to dismiss the revocation proceedings on the ground that he never…