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 2021-06

Ramon Jauregui-Garcia v. Merrick Garland ( 2021 )


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  •                            NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        JUN 14 2021
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
RAMON JAUREGUI-GARCIA,                          No.    20-16871
Petitioner-Appellant,           D.C. No. 2:20-cv-00876-JAT-JFM
v.
MEMORANDUM*
MERRICK GARLAND, et al.,
Respondents-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
James A. Teilborg, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted June 8, 2021**
Pasadena, California
Before: MURGUIA and BADE, Circuit Judges, and MOLLOY,*** District Judge.
Ramon Angel Jauregui-Garcia, a citizen and native of Mexico, petitions for
review of the district court’s dismissal of his habeas petition as moot after he
challenged the conditions of his confinement and an Immigration Judge released him
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Donald W. Molloy, United States District Judge for
the District of Montana, sitting by designation.
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on bond under
    8 U.S.C. § 1226
    (a). We have jurisdiction under
    28 U.S.C. § 1291
    and review de novo the district court’s decision to dismiss the petition as moot.
Zegarra-Gomez v. INS,
    314 F.3d 1124
    , 1126 (9th Cir. 2003). We affirm.
1. “[A] case becomes moot when it no longer present[s] a case or controversy
under Article III, § 2 of the Constitution.” Abdala v. INS,
    488 F.3d 1061
    , 1063 (9th
Cir. 2007) (second alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). Release from confinement does not automatically moot a habeas petition
so long as there remains some “collateral consequence that may be redressed by
success on the petition.”
    Id. at 1064
     (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
No such consequence exists here.         Although the discretionary redetainment
provisions of § 1226(a) raise the possibility that Jauregui-Garcia may be redetained
in the future, this possibility does not prolong a live case or controversy because,
unlike the recognized collateral consequence in Zegarra-Gomez, redetainment under
§ 1226(a) may never come to fruition. See
    314 F.3d at 1127
    .
2. A case is also moot “when it is impossible for a court to grant any effectual
relief whatever to the prevailing party.” Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez,
    577 U.S. 153
    , 161 (2016) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).           Here, the
dispositive fact is that Jauregui-Garcia did not challenge the government’s authority
to confine him but instead challenged the confinement conditions.           This fact
distinguishes Jauregui-Garcia from the petitioners in Clark v. Martinez,
    543 U.S. 371
     (2005), and Rodriguez v. Hayes,
    591 F.3d 1105
     (9th Cir. 2010). Unlike those
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petitioners, Jauregui-Garcia does not argue that the government lacked authority to
detain him, nor does he argue that he was deprived of the opportunity to challenge
the justification of his detention. Rather, he seems to be in the “far different
situation” the Court envisioned in Rodriguez, where it implied no case or
controversy would exist. See 591 F.3d at 1117 (explaining that if petitioner had
received a hearing before an Immigration Judge in which the government had the
burden of justifying his detention, he would be “in a far different situation from his
current one”). Further, Jauregui-Garcia overreads Clark to stand for the rule that a
discretionary statutory release provision preserves a case or controversy. In Clark,
the petitioner may never have been discretionarily redetained, but in no event would
his release have exceeded one year. See
    543 U.S. at 
    376 n.3. Thus, the temporal
limitation made the Clark petitioner’s return to custody imminent and certain in a
way that Jauregui-Garcia’s possible return to custody is not.
3. Because Jauregui-Garcia cannot show that there is a reasonable expectation
that he will be subjected to the same confinement again in light of the changed
conditions at the detention facility, no exception to the mootness doctrine applies.
See Foster v. Carson,
    347 F.3d 742
    , 746 (9th Cir. 2003). Therefore, the district court
properly dismissed Jauregui-Garcia’s habeas petition as moot.
AFFIRMED.
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