Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02254/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02254-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Heriberto Fernandez Monsisvais
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

HERIBERTO FERNANDEZ MONSISVAIS ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellant. ) 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals Tcnllt Circuit 

OCT 0 3 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk · 

No. 90-2254 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

For the District of New Mexico 

(D.C. No. CR89-116JB-01) 

Robert Ramos, (Gary Hill on the brief), El Paso, Texas, for 

defendant-appellant. 

David N. Williams, Assistant United States Attorney (William L. 

Lutz, United States Attorney with him on the brief), Albuquerque, 

New Mexico, for plaintiff-appellee. 

Before HOLLOWAY, LOGAN and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

LOGAN, Circuit Judge. 

Appellate Case: 90-2254 Document: 01019290915 Date Filed: 10/03/1991 Page: 1 
Defendant Heriberto Fernandez Monsisvais entered a 

conditional guilty plea to a charge of possession with intent to 

distribute marijuana in violation of 21 u.s.c. § 84l(a)(l). He 

reserved the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress 

the introduction into evidence of the marijuana he was accused of 

possessing. On that appeal, another panel of this court reversed 

the district court's determination that the marijuana was 

admissible. See United States v. Monsisvais, 907 F.2d 987 (lOth 

Cir. 1990) [hereinafter Monsisvais I]. A majority of the prior 

panel held that the stop of defendant's vehicle was unlawful 

because "the totality of the specific articulable facts presented 

in this case, together with the rational inferences to be drawn 

therefrom, do not reasonabiy warrant suspicion that appellant's 

vehicle contained persons illegally in the country." Id. at 992. 

The instant appeal arises from the remand. Instead of 

dismissing the case against defendant or proceeding to try 

defendant without the benefit of the marijuana that was the 

subject of the prior appeal, the government filed, and was 

granted, a motion to be permitted to present evidence at a 

supplemental hearing on the motion to suppress. At the 

supplemental hearing the government provided the evidence this 

court found lacking in the first hearing, 1 and on the basis of 

1 The record before the prior panel was "silent as to the 

characteristics of the area in which the vehicle was encountered, 

the proximity of the area to the border, the usual patterns of 

traffic on the particular road and information about recent or 

expected illegal immigrant activity in the area." Monsisvais I, 

907 F.2d at 992. The prior record also lacked certain details 

regarding the border patrol agent's experience with alien traffic. 

Id. 

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Appellate Case: 90-2254 Document: 01019290915 Date Filed: 10/03/1991 Page: 2 
that additional evidence the district court ruled the marijuana 

evidence was not to be suppressed. The instant appeal is from 

that ruling. 

We directed the parties to submit memorandum briefs on 

whether the district court's order was indeed appealable. After 

considering those briefs we are satisfied that we have 

jurisdiction. In effect the guilty plea was never withdrawn nor 

was there any retrial. Rather, the case is in the same posture as 

at the time we heard the first appeal, except that the government 

had a second opportunity to present evidence. 

Merely stating the posture of the present case answers, we 

believe, the only issue before us on appeal: whether the trial 

court erred in conducting the supplemental hearing. We hold that 

the supplemental hearing on the motion to suppress was improper 

because this court's decision in Monsisvais I was the law of the 

case and therefore binding on the district court on remand. 

The law of the case "doctrine posits that when a court 

decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to 

govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case." 

Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618 (1983). 2 In United 

States v. Rivera-Martinez, 931 F.2d 148 (1st Cir. 1991), the court 

2 Some courts characterize the law of the case doctrine as 

applying to both findings of fact and conclusions of law. See, 

~, United States v. Burns, 662 F.2d 1378, 1384 (11th Cir. 

1981). The prior panel concluded as a matter of law that the 

facts presented at the first suppression hearing did not give rise 

to a reasonable suspicion, see Monsisvais I, 907 F.2d at 992; thus 

the decision was of a legal issue. Cf. Mesmer v. United States, 

405 F.2d 316, 319 (lOth Cir. 1969) (legality of search warrant 

generally is question of law). We do not address under what 

circumstances findings of fact become the law of the case. 

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Appellate Case: 90-2254 Document: 01019290915 Date Filed: 10/03/1991 Page: 3 
said that 

"[i]n terms of the dynamics between trial and appellate 

courts, the phrase 'law of the case' signifies, in broad 

outline, that a decision of an appellate tribunal on a 

particular issue, unless vacated or set aside, governs 

the issue during all subsequent stages of the litigation 

in the nisi prius court, and thereafter on any further 

appeal." 

Id. at 150 (citing Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. at 618). One 

commentator states that 

"[w]hen a case is appealed and remanded, the decision of 

the appellate court establishes the law of the case and 

it must be followed by the trial court on remand. If 

there is an appeal from the judgment entered after 

remand, the decision on the first appeal establishes the 

law of the case to be followed on the second." 

lB J. Moore, J. Lucas & T. Currier, Moore's ~ederal Practice 

,I 0.404[1], at 119 (2d ed. 1991) (footnote omitted) (emphasis in 

original). This court has accepted the doctrine as "a restriction 

self-imposed by the courts in the interests of judicial 

efficiency. It is a rule based on sound public policy that 

litigation should come to an end, and is designed to bring about a 

quick resolution of disputes by preventing continued re-argument 

of issues already decided." Gage v. General Motors Corp., 796 

F.2d 345, 349 (lOth Cir. 1986) (citations omitted). The law of 

the case doctrine also serves the purposes of discouraging panel 

shopping at the court of appeals level and assuring district court 

compliance with the decisions of the appellate court. See 

Heathcoat v. Potts, 905 F.2d 367, 370 (11th Cir. 1990). The 

doctrine applies in criminal as well as civil cases, see United 

States v. Nechy, 827 F.2d 1161, 1164 (7th Cir. 1987), and 

specifically when a suppression order is reversed on appeal. See 

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3 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 678, at 801-02 (2d 

ed. 1982). 

Although the specific circumstances of this case are unusual, 

there have been closely analogous cases. They support our 

holding. United States v. White, 846 F.2d 678 (11th Cir.), cert. 

denied, 488 u.s. 984 (1988), raised almost precisely the issue 

presented in the case before us. White was a civil rights 

prosecution arising from a clash between the Ku Klux Klan and the 

Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In a pretrial ruling, 

the district court suppressed certain depositions taken in a 

related civil action. In the first appeal, the Eleventh Circuit 

reversed, holding that the depositions were admissible. On 

remand, the district court.held additional suppression hearings 

regarding the depositions and again suppressed them. In the 

second appeal, the Eleventh Circuit determined "that the district 

court violated the law of the case" because the first appeal had 

decided the issue of the depositions' admissibility. Id. at 685. 

It is of no moment that the district court in White suppressed the 

evidence while the district court in the case before us admitted 

the evidence. In both cases the appellate court decided the legal 

issue of admissibility and reversed; in both the district court 

held one or more additional hearings on the question of 

admissibility; in both the result was a second appeal. 

Another instructive case is Baumer v. United States, 685 F.2d 

1318 (11th Cir. 1982), which was the second appeal in an income 

tax refund suit. In the first appeal, a panel of the former Fifth 

Circuit had held, inter alia, that because the taxpayers had 

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Appellate Case: 90-2254 Document: 01019290915 Date Filed: 10/03/1991 Page: 5 
failed to produce any evidence of the value of an option to 

purchase certain land when it was granted, its fair market value 

was unascertainable, and the circuit court remanded to the 

district court with specific instructions to determine the 

option's value at a different time {i.e·. , when exercised) . Id. at 

1320 (citing Baumer v. United States, 580 F.2d 863, 886 (5th Cir. 

1978)). On remand, as in the instant case, the district court 

allowed 'the introduction, over objection, of evidence that the 

court of appeals had found was lacking. As in the instant case, 

the district court after considering the newly-presented evidence 

reached a conclusion contrary to that of the appellate court. In 

the second appeal, the Eleventh Circuit held that "the District 

Court's determination •.• is contrary to the law of the case 

established by a prior panel of this Court." Id. at 1321. 

We recognize that the law of the case doctrine has long been 

considered only a rule of practice in the courts and not a limit 

on their power. See Messinger v. Anderson, 225 u.s. 436, 444 

(1912) (Holmes, J.) (the "'law of the case' ... merely expresses 

the practice of courts generally to refuse to reopen what has been 

decided, [and is] not a limit to their power"). "Unlike res 

judicata, the [law of the case doctrine] is not an 'inexorable 

command,' but is to be applied with good sense." Major v. Benton, 

647 F.2d at 110, 112 (lOth Cir. 1981) (citations omitted). 

Nevertheless, the circumstances justifying a departure from the 

law of the case are narrow. The most widely quoted statement is 

by former Tenth Circuit Chief Judge Orie Phillips, sitting in 

another circuit, that the law of the case must be followed "unless 

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the evidence on a subsequent trial was substantially different, 

controlling authority has since made a contrary decision of the 

law applicable to such issues, or the decision was clearly 

erroneous and would work a manifest injustice." White v. Murtha, 

377 F.2d 428, 432 (5th Cir. 1967) (footnote omitted); see also 

Rivera-Martinez, 931 F.2d at 151 (agreeing with the White 

statement of the exceptions to the rule and citing as in accord 

cases from the Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Eleventh, Federal, and 

District of Columbia Circuits); Major, 647 F.2d at 112 (exceptions 

are that "substantially different, new evidence has been 

introduced[;] subsequent, contradictory controlling authority 

exists[;] or the original order is clearly erroneous"). Generally 

courts read "these exceptions narrowly, requiring district courts 

to apply the law of the case unless one of the exceptions 

'specifically and unquestionably applies."' See White, 846 F.2d 

at 685 (quoting Leggett v. Badger, 798 F.2d 1387, 1389 n.2 (11th 

Cir. 1984)). 

The government does not contend that any of the three 

circumstances that might justify departing from the law of the 

case exist in this case, and it is clear that none do. The 

"different or new evidence" exception does not apply because, as 

the border patrol agent acknowledged, III R. 49-50, the additional 

evidence provided by the government at the supplemental hearing 

was evidence it had in its possession, but failed to produce, at 

the time of the original hearing. In Baumer, the court said 

"[t]here is nothing in the record to indicate that the 

evidence produced at the hearing after remand was 

unavailable to the taxpayers during the first trial. 

The taxpayers simply chose not to produce that evidence. 

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Appellate Case: 90-2254 Document: 01019290915 Date Filed: 10/03/1991 Page: 7 
They chose their trial strategy, litigated accordingly, 

and lost. They are not now entitled to resurrect a 

previously abandoned issue." 

Baumer, 685 F.2d at 1321. In the first appeal in Rivera-Martinez, 

the court held that the defendant could not withdraw his guilty 

plea. Nevertheless, on remand the district court, over objection, 

took additional evidence on the original plea-withdrawal motion. 

Rivera-Martinez, 931 F.2d at 150. In the second appeal, the 

appellate court held that the different evidence exception did not 

apply and that the first appeal established the law of the case. 

Id. at 151-52. We agree with the First Circuit that 

"[t]he 'different evidence' exception to the law of the 

case doctrine does not apply when a trial court 

gratuitously jettisons the rule in order to address an 

issue explicitly decided, and foreclosed, in an earlier 

appeal in the same case. Any other outcome would 

severely undermine the efficacy of the doctrine. If, by 

the simple expedient of flaunting the law of the case, a 

trial court which should have deferred to an appellate 

court's resolution of an issue could proceed to address 

the issue anew, then the doctrine would disappear into 

thin air." 

Id. at 151. 

The government argues that our earlier opinion merely 

foreclosed examination of the legal bases by which the stop of 

defendant's truck could be challenged or justified but did not 

forbid the court from considering additional evidence bearing on 

that legal issue. The district judge believed that the law of the 

case doctrine applied, but he also read our decision in 

Monsisvais I as inviting the presentation of additional evidence 

on the issue of admissibility. While we understand how the 

district court might so read our decision, that is an incorrect 

reading. The Monsisvais I opinion pointed out the deficiencies in 

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the government's evidence at the original suppression hearing; but 

it also explicitly decided the issue of the legality of the stop 

of defendant's vehicle. The prior panel's determination was that 

the facts the government presented during the court proceedings 

leading to defendant's conviction were insufficient as a matter of 

law to support the trial court's denial of the motion to suppress. 

This is a legal determination that became the rule of law in the 

case and was binding upon the district court after remand. It is 

unfortunate if the government blundered when attempting to make 

its case the first time. But we see no distinction in principle 

between this case and one that has been reversed because of 

insufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. See Burks 

v. United States, 437 u.s. 1 (1978). 

It does not matter that in cases that the government believes 

are closely analogous a different panel of this court upheld the 

denial of the motion for suppression. Nor does it matter that in 

an earlier, unrelated case the government had presented testimony 

that "Highway 85 is a well-documented alien smuggling route • • . 

[where the Border Patrol had] apprehended many alien smuggling 

loads .••• " See United States v. Pollack, 895 F.2d 686, 687 

(lOth Cir.), cert. denied, 111 S. Ct. 520 (1990) (cited in 

Monsisvais I, 907 F.2d at 993 (Barrett, J., dissenting)). The 

government had the burden to present sufficient evidence to 

justify the stop of this defendant's vehicle in the proceedings of 

this case. In this case, the panel majority held that the 

government had not met the legal standards in the stop of 

defendant's vehicle; accordingly, the opinion reversed the 

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district court's order denying defendant's motion to suppress. We 

know of no case even close which would allow the government to 

make its case again. 

On remand, the district court was not free to consider 

additional evidence on the issue of legality of the stop; rather, 

it was obligated to follow this court's determination. A 

different result would allow the district court to substitute its 

opinion for that of this court, which is what the law of the case 

doctrine is intended to avoid. See United States v. Singleton, 

759 F.2d 176, 183 (D.C. Cir. 1985). 

The government argues that had the Monsisvais I panel 

intended to bar further proceedings on this issue it could have 

remanded the case with directions to permit defendant to withdraw 

his guilty plea and to dismiss the case. We reject that 

proposition also. Our judgment did not forbid retrial simply 

because we did not know what other evidence the government had 

that might permit a jury to find defendant guilty. If the case 

could be retried without the suppressed evidence and a conviction 

obtained, then we did not intend to forbid that action. But to 

permit a second opportunity to make the case on suppression that 

was deficient in the first place is not the same as an 

interlocutory order of the court that is subject to 

reconsideration any time before the case is ended. 

REVERSED AND REMANDED. If the government has sufficient 

evidence apart from that which this court previously held must be 

suppressed, the court shall permit withdrawal of the guilty plea 

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and allow the government to proceed. Otherwise, the court shall 

order the indictment dismissed. 

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