United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 18-1350 

UNITED STATES, 

Appellee, 

v. 

MARIO ERNESTO GARCIA-ZAVALA, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE 

[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Lynch, Circuit Judge, 

Souter,* Associate Justice, 

and Kayatta, Circuit Judge. 

Robert C. Andrews, with whom Robert C. Andrews Esquire P.C. 

was on brief, for appellant. 

Julia M. Lipez, Assistant U.S. Attorney, with whom Halsey B. 

Frank, U.S. Attorney, was on brief, for appellee. 

 March 25, 2019 

 * Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the 

Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation. 
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LYNCH, Circuit Judge. This case concerns the denial of 

pretrial motions brought by a defendant attacking his conviction 

for illegal reentry after removal from the United States. 

Mario Ernesto Garcia-Zavala was a passenger in a van 

stopped in Maine for seatbelt violations. The Maine State Trooper 

conducting the stop spoke with the driver and passengers, several 

of whom did not appear to be wearing their seatbelts or to speak 

English. The Trooper contacted an Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement (ICE) Officer for help identifying the passengers. 

When asked for his identification, Garcia-Zavala 

produced a consular ID card. An ICE Officer ran that ID through 

ICE databases and determined that Garcia-Zavala was suspected of 

illegal reentry. When ICE officers arrived at the scene, they 

placed Garcia-Zavala in administrative custody. Thirteen days 

later, he was charged with one count of illegally entering the 

United States after removal, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), 

and made his initial court appearance. Garcia-Zavala was convicted 

after a bench trial. 

His appeal essentially raises two issues: (1) whether 

the district court erred in not dismissing his indictment for delay 

in presentment, in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 

5(a), and (2) whether the district court erred in not suppressing 

information that law enforcement had gathered about him, including 

his identity. 
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We affirm the district court's denial of Garcia-Zavala's 

motion to dismiss and motion to suppress. 

I. 

The district court helpfully detailed a minute-by-minute 

account of the traffic stop. United States v. Garcia-Zavala, 2018 

WL 1091973, at *1-4 (D. Me. Feb. 28, 2018). We summarize that 

account here. 

On September 9, 2017, Maine State Trooper Robert Burke 

III observed a van whose front-seat passenger appeared not to be 

wearing a seatbelt, a violation of Maine law. Id. at *1 (citing 

Me. Stat. tit. 29-A, § 2081(3-A)). Burke pulled the van over at 

12:20 p.m. and asked the driver for identification. Id. He then 

moved to the other side of the van to ask the passengers questions. 

Id. After receiving minimal responses, Burke asked if anyone in 

the van spoke English. Id. Burke remarked that several passengers 

did not appear to be wearing seatbelts and did not seem to speak 

English. Id. 

Burke returned to his car and called Elliot Arsenault, 

an ICE Deportation Officer. Id. at *2. Burke told Arsenault that 

he had stopped a van for a seatbelt violation and that he thought 

Arsenault should "come out" because he believed that the stop would 

"lead to people from out of this country." Id. Burke said that 

he intended to issue tickets for seatbelt violations, so he needed 

ICE assistance in identifying the van's occupants. Id. Arsenault 
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asked Burke to get any consulate ID cards or other means of 

identification, so Burke did. Id. 

The driver produced a Mexico consular ID card. Id. Some 

of the other passengers produced consular ID cards, including 

Garcia-Zavala, who had a Honduran consular ID card. Id. Burke 

told the van occupants that they were not free to leave, returned 

to his vehicle, and sent photographs of the ID cards to Arsenault. 

Id. And because the van's driver was unlicensed, Burke also tried 

to determine whether any of the van passengers had a valid driver's 

license to allow one of them to drive the van from the scene. Id. 

Trooper Jason Cooley soon arrived. Id. He and Burke 

spent the next several minutes inspecting the IDs. Id. Since 

none of the van's occupants produced a driver's license, Burke 

asked dispatch to call a tow truck to the scene. Id. 

By 12:41 p.m., just over twenty minutes after the stop 

had begun, Arsenault had determined that Garvia-Zavala was 

suspected of reentry after removal. Id. He communicated that 

information to ICE Officer John Lenotte, who was in Maine and 

available to go to the scene. Id. Arsenault also sent the reentry 

information to Burke. Id. Burke replied that there was time for 

ICE Officers to make it to the scene because he intended to arrest 

the driver of the van for driving without a license and to have 

the van towed. Id. 
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Burke explained to the van's occupants that he intended 

to write each of them a ticket for failing to wear a seatbelt, 

that this would take about half an hour, and that they would have 

to wait for the tickets. Id. at *3. He returned to the van with 

the first ticket about five minutes later. Id. 

When the tow truck arrived at 1:19 p.m., Burke told its 

driver that they would wait for ICE Officers to arrive before 

towing the vehicle. Id. The first ICE Officer, Patrick Mullen, 

arrived on the scene about twenty minutes later. Id. Lenotte 

soon followed. Id. Both ICE Officers knew from Arsenault that 

Garcia-Zavala was subject to detention for illegal reentry. Id. 

Without administering a Miranda warning, Lenotte asked 

Garcia-Zavala for his name and date of birth. Id. In response, 

Garcia-Zavala provided answers matching the information on the 

Honduran consular ID card previously given to Burke.1 Id. 

ICE officers took Garcia-Zavala into administrative 

custody and transported him to an ICE office for booking. Id. 

The district court found this was ICE's "standard process." Id. 

Fingerprints and additional record checks conducted at the office 

confirmed that Garcia-Zavala had been removed from the United 

States in 2014. Id. After the booking was complete, Garcia-

 1 Garcia-Zavala also admitted to Lenotte that he was in 

the country illegally. The government committed not to introduce 

this statement at trial. Id. at *3 n.9. 
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Zavala was transported to Cumberland County Jail, where ICE paid 

to house him. Id. 

On Monday, September 11, 2017, Lenotte transported 

Garcia-Zavala from the jail back to the ICE office. Id. at *4. 

He administered a Miranda warning with the aid of an interpreter. 

Id. Garcia-Zavala invoked his right to remain silent. Id. 

Lenotte then returned him to the jail. Id. 

Lenotte received Garcia-Zavala's alien file (A-file) on 

Friday, September 15, 2017. Id. By the following Monday, 

September 18, 2017, Lenotte had sent the necessary paperwork to 

the U.S. Attorney's Office with a recommendation for criminal 

prosecution, which the U.S. Attorney's Office accepted. Id. The 

office prepared a criminal complaint against Garcia-Zavala and 

presented it to a Magistrate Judge on September 19, 2017. Id. 

That same day, a criminal arrest warrant was issued for GarciaZavala, who remained in custody at the Cumberland County Jail. 

Id. 

Garcia-Zavala made his initial appearance on September 

22, 2017 and, on that same day, was transferred to the custody of 

the U.S. Marshal. Id. Garcia-Zavala was in custody for thirteen 

days before making his initial appearance. Id. 

Garcia-Zavala moved to dismiss his indictment, claiming 

that the government violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 

5(a) by unnecessarily delaying his initial appearance on a pending 
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charge. He also moved to suppress his identity, his consular card, 

his fingerprint card, his A-file, and statements he had made to 

Lenotte. 

The district court denied the motion to dismiss, finding 

no Rule 5(a) violation, and concluding that, in the alternative, 

dismissal was not the appropriate remedy for a presentment delay. 

Id. at *5. The district court denied the motion to suppress 

because the traffic stop did not violate Garcia-Zavala's rights, 

the stop was not unduly lengthy, and identity information is not 

subject to suppression. Id. at *5-8.

The district court also, despite Garcia-Zavala's 

arguments otherwise, found no "factual support" for the assertion 

"that the stop was racially motivated." Id. at *5. 

This appeal followed.2

II. 

A. Motion to Dismiss 

We review the district court's legal conclusions de 

novo, its factual findings for clear error, and its "ultimate 

 2 Though the government states that "Garcia-Zavala has 

completed serving his term of imprisonment and likely has been 

deported," the appeal is not moot. Collateral legal consequences 

flow from the challenged conviction. See, e.g., United States v. 

Marsh, 747 F.2d 7, 9 n.2 (1st Cir. 1984) (concluding that although 

all defendants had completed their jail time and been deported, 

their record of conviction constituted a continuing harm, so their 

appeals were not moot). 
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ruling" for abuse of discretion. United States v. Doe, 741 F.3d 

217, 226 (1st Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Garcia-Zavala's argument is that the government violated 

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a) by unnecessarily delaying 

his initial appearance on a pending charge.3 Rule 5(a) requires a 

"person making an arrest within the United States [to] take the 

defendant without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge, or 

before a state or local judicial officer as Rule 5(c) provides, 

unless a statute provides otherwise." Fed. R. Crim. P. 5(a)(1)(A). 

But Rule 5(a) does not generally apply to civil detainees. See 

United States v. Encarnacion, 239 F.3d 395, 398-99 (1st Cir. 2001). 

We agree with the district court that there was no Rule 5(a) 

violation here. Garcia-Zavala, 2018 WL 1091973, at *5. 

Garcia-Zavala was held in civil ICE detention until the 

day of his initial appearance. Garcia-Zavala was detained on 

suspicion of having illegally reentered the United States, in 

violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. Illegal reentry is a civil "status 

offense that does not trigger the protections of Rule 5(a) until 

the criminal process has been initiated against the detained 

alien." United States v. Tejada, 255 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 2001); 

 3 In his motion to dismiss, Garcia-Zavala raised a claim 

under the Speedy Trial Act (STA), 18 U.S.C. § 3161(b). He has 

waived any such claim on appeal for lack of developed 

argumentation. See United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st 

Cir. 1990). 
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see Encarnacion, 239 F.3d at 399. So ICE's administrative custody 

of Garcia-Zavala beginning on September 9, 2017, was civil, not 

criminal. 

We have conjectured that Rule 5(a) may apply when "the 

government uses civil detention as a pretext for holding an 

individual while it investigates other possible criminal charges." 

Tejada, 255 F.3d at 4 (not involving such evidence of pretext). 

Garcia-Zavala argues that this is such a case. He argues that, 

thirty minutes into the stop, it was already clear that he would 

be criminally charged, so the Rule 5(a) "unnecessary delay" 

analysis should begin there. But the district court found no 

evidence that Garcia-Zavala was "detained for any reason other 

than routine inquiry into his suspicious immigration status -- a 

civil matter." Garcia-Zavala, 2018 WL 1091973, at *4 (quoting 

Tejada, 255 F.3d at 4). And the district court found no evidence 

that the government employed "delaying tactics for an 

impermissible purpose." Id. (quoting Tejada, 255 F.3d at 5). 

Rather, Officer Lenotte followed the course laid out in Tejada and 

Encarnacion: He promptly obtained a hard copy of Garcia-Zavala's 

immigration A-file, confirmed the previous deportation order, and 

then presented the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for criminal 

charges. See Tejada, 255 F.3d at 2; Encarnacion, 239 F.3d at 396-

97. Based on our review of the record, we find no clear error 

with the district court's factual findings. 
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Garcia-Zavala only entered criminal custody on September 

22, 2017, when ICE officials brought him to the courthouse for his 

initial appearance. Because Garcia-Zavala made his initial 

appearance just as "the criminal process [was] initiated," Tejada, 

255 F.3d at 3, there was no "unnecessary delay" before his initial 

appearance and so no Rule 5(a) violation.4

B. Motion to Suppress 

Garcia-Zavala moved to suppress his identity, his 

consular ID card, his fingerprint card, and his A-file. We affirm 

the denial of Garcia-Zavala's motion to suppress this evidence for 

the reasons stated by the district court, id. at *5-7 (part II.B.1 

through II.B.2), and do not reach its identity information ruling, 

id. at *7-8 (part II.B.3). 

Garcia-Zavala also moved to suppress his unwarned 

statements to Lenotte. When questioned by Lenotte during the 

roadside stop, Garcia-Zavala identified himself and provided his 

date of birth and country of origin. Garcia-Zavala argues that 

this information was obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 

384 U.S. 436 (1966), and that this violation warrants suppression.5

 4 Because there was no Rule 5(a) violation, "we need not 

decide whether Rule 5(a) can ever be a basis for dismissal of an 

indictment absent evidence of unwarranted interrogation during the 

period of detention." Encarnacion, 239 F.3d at 400 n.5. 

5 The district court appears to have resolved this issue 

by holding that identity information is not subject to suppression. 

See Garcia-Zavala, 2018 WL 1091973, at *7-8. We take a different 

tack, noting that we may affirm a district court's "suppression 
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There was no Miranda violation. The government agreed 

not to use Garcia-Zavala's incriminating responses against him. 

And Garcia-Zavala's statements identifying himself, his date of 

birth, and his country of origin are not subject to Miranda. See 

United States v. Sanchez, 817 F.3d 38, 45 (1st Cir. 2016) (noting 

the Miranda exception for routine booking questions not seeking to 

elicit incriminating responses). 

We note a final matter: At oral argument, Garcia-Zavala 

suggested that the van's passengers may have been racially 

profiled. But he never developed this argument in his briefs and 

he offers no basis for finding clear error in the district court's 

factual finding to the contrary. 

III. 

We affirm the district court's denial of Garcia-Zavala's 

motion to dismiss and motion to suppress. 

 

rulings on any basis apparent in the record." United States v. 

Arnott, 758 F.3d 40, 43 (1st Cir. 2014).