United States v. Shelton Ketter, 908 F.3d 61

In 2010 Ketter was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and originally sentenced under the ACCA after two South Carolina second-degree burglary convictions, receiving 192 months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release.
After Johnson v. United States invalidated the ACCA residual clause and Welch made Johnson retroactive, Ketter filed a § 2255 motion; the Government agreed he no longer qualified as an armed career criminal.
The district court resentenced Ketter in 2017 after intervening Fourth Circuit cases, reducing his custodial sentence to time served (≈90 months) and imposing two years’ supervised release (Guidelines range for custody at resentencing was 27–33 months; supervised-release range 1–3 years).
The district court did not expressly state that the time-served sentence was an upward variance from the Guidelines and checked the box indicating the sentence was “within the guideline range.” Counsel objected that the sentence was a procedurally and substantively unreasonable upward variance.
Ketter completed his imprisonment and remains on supervised release, prompting the Fourth Circuit to consider whether his appeal is moot and, if not, whether the sentencing deviations were procedurally or substantively unreasonable.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Mootness: whether Ketter’s appeal is moot after he finished custody but remains on supervised release	Ketter: custodial and supervised-release terms form a unitary sentence; appeal not moot because relief could shorten supervised release	Government: custodial and supervised-release portions separable; once custody ended appeal is moot under Spencer and Hardy	Court: appeal not moot — custodial and supervised-release terms are unitary; ongoing supervised release preserves a live controversy
Reasonableness of time‑served sentence: whether imposing time served (90 months) without explaining variance from 27–33 month Guidelines range was reversible error	Ketter: sentence was an unexplained upward variance and substantively unreasonable; he asks remand so court can explain and potentially credit overserved time via reduced supervised release	Government: time-served sentence served the same purposes as the Guideline sentence; any deviation harmless because court reduced supervised release in recognition of overserved custody	Court: imposition was a procedurally erroneous unexplained variance, but error was harmless because the district court expressly accounted for overserved custody by reducing supervised release to two years and the error did not affect substantial rights; judgment affirmed

Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015) (invalidated ACCA residual clause)
Welch v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1257 (2016) (held Johnson’s rule is retroactive on collateral review)
Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016) (addressed categorical approach to predicate offenses)
Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1 (1998) (mootness after incarceration ends absent other continuing injury)
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007) (sentencing courts must explain any variance from Guidelines)
Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., 568 U.S. 85 (2013) (standard for Article III mootness)
United States v. Evans, 159 F.3d 908 (4th Cir. 1998) (supervised release is part of the original sentence)