Opinion ID: 788425
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court's Reconsideration of the Motion to Suppress

Text: 14 The district court did not err in reconsidering its initial grant of Smith's motion to suppress. We have held that a district court may reconsider its prior rulings so long as it retains jurisdiction over the case. City of Los Angeles v. Santa Monica Baykeeper, 254 F.3d 882, 888 (9th Cir.2001). Because the district court never relinquished jurisdiction over Smith's case, even after it granted his motion to suppress, the court retained the power to reconsider its own ruling. 15 Under the `law of the case' doctrine, a court is ordinarily precluded from reexamining an issue previously decided by the same court, or a higher court, in the same case. Richardson v. United States, 841 F.2d 993, 996 (9th Cir.1988) (citations omitted). The doctrine is a judicial invention designed to aid in the efficient operation of court affairs, United States v. Lummi Indian Tribe, 235 F.3d 443, 452 (9th Cir.2000) (quoting Milgard Tempering, Inc. v. Selas Corp. of Am., 902 F.2d 703, 715 (9th Cir.1990)), and is founded upon the sound public policy that litigation must come to an end, Old Person v. Brown, 312 F.3d 1036, 1039 (9th Cir.2002), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 566, 157 L.Ed.2d 429 (2003). Further, the doctrine serves to advance the principle that in order to maintain consistency during the course of a single lawsuit, reconsideration of legal questions previously decided should be avoided. United States v. Houser, 804 F.2d 565, 567 (9th Cir.1986) (citation omitted). Notably, [i]ssues that a district court determines during pretrial motions become law of the case. United States v. Phillips, 367 F.3d 846, 856 (9th Cir.2004) (citation omitted) cert. denied, No. 04-5686, 125 S.Ct. 479, 2004 WL 2070630 (Nov. 8, 2004). 16 The law of the case doctrine isnot an inexorable command, Hanna Boys Center v. Miller, 853 F.2d 682, 686 (9th Cir.1988) (citation omitted), nor is it a limit to [a court's] power. Houser, 804 F.2d at 567-568. Rather, [a]pplication of the doctrine is discretionary. Lummi Indian Tribe, 235 F.3d at 452; see also Pickett v. Prince, 207 F.3d 402, 407 (7th Cir.2000) (stating that the doctrine is highly flexible) (citation omitted); Prisco v. A & D Carting Corp., 168 F.3d 593, 607 (2d Cir.1999); Avitia v. Metropolitan Club of Chicago, Inc., 49 F.3d 1219, 1227 (7th Cir.1995) (A judge may reexamine his earlier ruling... if he has a conviction at once strong and reasonable that the earlier ruling was wrong, and if rescinding it would not cause undue harm to the party that had benefitted from it.) (citation omitted); Moore's Federal Practice § 134.21[1] (3d ed. 2003) (When a court applies the law of the case doctrine to its own prior decisions ... the traditional formulations of the doctrine must be conceived as rules of thumb and not as straightjackets on the informed discretion and sound practical judgment of the judge). 17 The law of the case doctrine is wholly inapposite to circumstances where a district court seeks to reconsider an order over which it has not been divested of jurisdiction. See Santa Monica Baykeeper, 254 F.3d at 888. In Santa Monica Baykeeper, the district court sua sponte reconsidered its own order certifying for interlocutory appeal the denial of a motion to dismiss. Id. at 884. We were asked to assess whether the court's reconsideration of its order violated the law of the case doctrine. Id. Our analysis emphasized the importance in law of the case doctrine jurisprudence of distinguishing between a district court's consideration of its own prior decision and the directive of a higher court: 18 The legal effect of the doctrine of the law of the case depends upon whether the earlier ruling was made by a trial court or an appellate court. All rulings of a trial court are subject to revision at any time before the entry of judgment. A trial court may not, however, reconsider a question decided by an appellate court. 19 Id. at 888-89 (quoting, with emphasis added, Houser, 804 F.2d at 567). Accordingly, we determined that [t]he doctrine simply does not impinge upon a district court's power to reconsider its own interlocutory order provided that the district court has not been divested of jurisdiction over the order. Id. at 888 (citing Houser, 804 F.2d at 567). Because the Baykeeper district court had rescinded its own prior order, over which it retained jurisdiction, we resolved that the court did not violate the law of the case doctrine. Id. at 889. 20 Just as in Santa Monica Baykeeper, the district court reconsidered its own order, over which its jurisdiction had not yet been divested. Therefore, under the authority of Santa Monica Baykeeper, the district court did not violate the law of the case doctrine. A survey of our sister circuits' application of the law of the case doctrine provides additional support for this conclusion. See Avitia, 49 F.3d at 1227; Prisco, 168 F.3d at 607; see also Moore's Federal Practice § 134.21[1] (3d ed.2003). 21 The cases upon which Smith relies to controvert this conclusion are inapplicable. In United States v. Alexander, 106 F.3d 874 (9th Cir.1997), we determined that the district court impermissibly departed from the law of the case doctrine by granting the government's motion to reconsider the court's previous order granting the defendant's motion to suppress his confession. Id. at 875. Unlike in either Santa Monica Baykeeper or the case at hand, the district court in Alexander granted the motion to reconsider only  after the jury was unable to reach a verdict and the court had declared a mistrial. Id. at 876 (emphasis added). By contrast, the district court here granted the motion in a timely manner. In Thomas v. Bible, 983 F.2d 152 (9th Cir.1993), the district court did not have jurisdiction to reconsider its prior order. In that case the district court's reconsideration of a grant of attorney's fees was improper because it was contrary to the appellate court's determination that a party's action was non-frivolous. See id. at 154-155. Because the appellate court's determination was binding on the district court, that determination became the controlling law of the case, and the district court's reconsideration was therefore improper. Unlike in Bible, the district court here retained jurisdiction over all issues in the case when it reconsidered its decision. 22 Because the district court retained jurisdiction when it reconsidered its prior grant of Smith's motion to suppress, that reconsideration did not violate the law of the case doctrine and was not improper.