United States v. Villalba

3:08-cr-00126

S.D. Ohio

Jun 28, 2024

Check Treatment

Docket

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. JOSE JESUS VILLALBA

Case No. 3:08-cr-126 (1)

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO WESTERN DIVISION AT DAYTON

June 27, 2024

Judge Walter H. Rice

PAGEID #: 830, 831

ORDER OVERRULING MOTION FOR COMPASSIONATE RELEASE OF DEFENDANT JOSE JESUS VILLALBA (DOC. #123) AS MOOT GIVEN DEFENDANT IS NO LONGER INCARCERATED

Before the Court is the Motion for Compassionate Release of Defendant Jose Jesus Villalba. (Doc. #123). On June 15, 2010, Defendant was sentenced to 204 months imprisonment after pleading guilty to one count from the Indictment. (Judgment, Doc. #58, citing Indictment, Doc. #5). On July 27, 2020, Defendant filed the Motion under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), as amended by the Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act (“First Step“) Act of 2018, Pub. L. 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194. While the Motion was pending, Defendant was released on February 4, 2022.¹ A case becomes moot if “the issues presented are no longer ‘live’ or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.” Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U.S. 478, 481 (1984) (citation omitted). A motion for compassionate release seeks relief not

from the judgment in toto, but from the confinement imposed as part of the judgment. “When a prisoner is released from custody, the motion for compassionate release becomes moot because there is no further relief this Court can provide[,]” United States v. Sanchez, No. 16-cr-2077, 2021 WL 5999764, *1 (S.D. Cal. Dec. 17, 2021) (collecting cases), and there is no longer a “live” and redressable issue pending before the Court. See, e.g., United States v. Hernandez, 845 F. App‘x 921, 921 (11th Cir. 2021) (per curiam) (“Completion of a prison term moots a challenge to the term of confinement.“).

As Defendant has completed his term of confinement, his Motion no longer presents a live case or controversy, and the Court is without jurisdiction to hear it. U.S. Const. art. III § 2. Accordingly, the Motion is OVERRULED AS MOOT.²

The captioned case remains terminated upon the docket records of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division, at Dayton.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

June 27, 2024

WALTER H. RICE, JUDGE

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

Notes

https://www.bop.gov/mobile/find_inmate/index.jsp#inmate_results (last accessed Jun. 26, 2024).

Also, the Court, having considered the factors for granting compassionate release set forth in , concludes that Defendant would not have been eligible for release while he was incarcerated. Defendant was under the age of sixty-five at the time of his Motion, and despite the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak at United States Penitentiary Lampoc, he was not at undue risk for serious infection because he was pre-diabetic, rather than diabetic. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13(b)(1)(D); (Doc. #123, PAGEID 727).

Read the detailed case summary