UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT 

No. 08-4638

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff – Appellee, 

 v. 

WALLACE THOMAS LESTER, 

 Defendant – Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Dever III, 

District Judge. (5:07-cr-00169-D-1) 

Submitted: January 26, 2009 Decided: February 17, 2009 

Before MICHAEL, TRAXLER, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges. 

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Bridgett Britt Aguirre, Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, for 

Appellant. George E. B. Holding, United States Attorney, Anne 

M. Hayes, Banumathi Rangarajan, Assistant United States 

Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 
PER CURIAM: 

 Wallace Thomas Lester was convicted by a jury of 

possession of a firearm by a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 922(g)(1), 924 (2006), and was sentenced to 240 months in 

prison. Lester’s sole argument on appeal is that the district 

court erred when it denied his motion for leave to file an 

untimely suppression motion. Finding no error, we affirm. 

 Under Fed. R. Crim. P. 12, motions to suppress must be 

filed prior to trial or by the deadline established by the 

court. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(3)(C), 12(c). A defendant 

waives the right to file a suppression motion if he fails to 

file the motion prior to the time set by the district court, 

unless he can establish good cause for the waiver. Fed. R. 

Crim. P. 12(e). This court has found good cause to excuse an 

untimely motion to suppress where, for instance, the delay in 

filing the suppression motion was caused by the government’s 

failure to turn over the evidence sought to be suppressed. See

United States v. Chavez, 902 F.2d 259, 263-64 (4th Cir. 1990). 

 This court will not disturb a district court’s denial 

of a motion for leave to file an untimely suppression motion 

unless the district court committed clear error. Id. at 263. 

“Accordingly, reviewing courts rarely grant relief from denials 

of untimely suppression motions.” Id. (recognizing that 

appellate courts generally deny relief from the denial of tardy 

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suppression motions where the motion was made after the courtimposed deadline and the defendant proffered only a “dubious 

excuse”); see also United States v. Ruhe, 191 F.3d 376, 386-87 

(4th Cir. 1999) (holding that there was no good cause to raise 

an untimely suppression issue where the defendant could have 

with due diligence discovered the information necessary to 

timely raise the issue). 

 We conclude that the district court did not commit 

error, clear or otherwise, when it denied Lester’s motion for 

leave to file an untimely motion to suppress. Moreover, even 

assuming that the district court clearly erred when it denied 

Lester’s motion for leave to file the untimely suppression 

motion, we find that the district court’s ultimate denial of 

Lester’s pro se suppression motion on its merits renders any 

assumed error harmless. See United States v. Abu Ali, 528 F.3d 

210, 231 (4th Cir. 2008) (recognizing that an error “will be 

deemed harmless if a reviewing court is able to say, with fair 

assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping 

the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not 

substantially swayed by the error”) (internal citations and 

quotation marks omitted). 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process. 

 AFFIRMED