Wilfredo Moreno Ferrer appealed the district court's denial of his motion to reduce his sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), relying on Amendment 821 to the Sentencing Guidelines. Ferrer argued the district court erred by using a form order to summarily deny his request without providing an adequate explanation for appellate review. However, by the time the Eleventh Circuit reviewed the case, Ferrer had completed his term of imprisonment on August 29, 2025. The government moved to dismiss the appeal on the grounds of mootness, arguing that the expiration of his prison term eliminated any live case or controversy.
The Eleventh Circuit, in a Per Curiam opinion, agreed with the government that the appeal was moot. The court reiterated that it retains jurisdiction only over live 'Cases and Controversies' under Article III of the Constitution. A case becomes moot if a party no longer suffers from an actual injury that could be remedied by a favorable judicial decision. The court cited United States v. Stevens, 997 F.3d 1307 (11th Cir. 2021), to distinguish between challenges to prison terms and supervised release. The court explained that while a challenge to a term of imprisonment is moot once that term has expired, an appeal related to supervised release is not moot if the defendant is still serving that portion of the sentence. In this instance, because Ferrer's motion sought only a reduction of his prison term and he had completed that term, he could not demonstrate a continuing injury. The court noted that his original motion did not seek a reduction of supervised release, nor would he have been eligible to do so at the time of filing.
The appeal is dismissed, leaving the district court's denial of the sentence reduction motion in place without a substantive review of the merits. This decision reinforces the principle that defendants must have a live sentence to challenge when seeking reductions under § 3582(c)(2). It clarifies that while supervised release challenges can survive the expiration of a prison term, motions strictly limited to the prison term itself cannot be appealed once that term is served.