Opinion ID: 203924
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Wallace's Waiver Argument

Text: Wallace argues that we should not apply the law of the case doctrine to any of his claims because the government did not explicitly raise the law of the case at resentencing before the district court, and hence should be precluded from invoking it on appeal. In support of this argument, appellant cites United States v. Lorenzo-Hernández, 279 F.3d 19, 22 (1st Cir.2002), where we refused to punish the defendant for the district court's failure to apply the mandate rule because the government did not present the argument to the district court. We stated that [i]f the government wishes to assert at resentencing before the district court after remand that certain issues resolved earlier should not be revisited, it should say so then. Id. Thus, to the extent appellant may rely on this case, it is only for its implications about the proper application of the mandate rule. Since oral argument in this case, we have again rejected the government's argument that the mandate rule should have barred an appellant's claim after resentencing because the government had failed to make th[e] argument to the district court. United States v. Olivero, 552 F.3d 34, 41 n. 4 (1st Cir.2009). Both of these cases are inapposite. In each, the district court at resentencing fully considered the defendant's sentencing challenge, with no substantive opposition from the government, which then sought to invoke the mandate rule for the first time on appeal. Thus, much of the efficiency gains provided by the doctrine were already lost. Here, however, after Wallace's cursory statement that he reiterat[ed] all the prior objections [to the PSR] that were filed by prior counsel, the district court properly replied that there was no need for discussion of those issues, unless there [was] something new, because those issues were argued before [the court] previously. They were denied. The court also incorporated by reference anything we had said with respect to those objections in Wallace's first appeal, and noted that, to the extent those objections were reiterated at resentencing, they were denied. Accordingly, without referring to the law of the case doctrine explicitly, the court essentially applied the mandate rule to Wallace's arguments; the government never had occasion to raise it. Under these circumstances, with the district court applying the law of the case doctrine itself, there was no need for the government to invoke the doctrine below, and Lorenzo-Hernández and Olivero do not apply. [6]