Opinion ID: 181309
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to appeal issues to the district court

Text: Pilati did not preserve the majority of the issues he brings to this Court on appeal because he did not raise those issues on appeal to the district court. The Government asserts Pilati has abandoned every issue in his initial brief except for the one argument raised in Pilati's 18 U.S.C. § 3402 appeal to the district court, that the magistrate judge erred in imposing a SORNA registration requirement on Pilati. This Court has never specifically addressed whether a defendant abandons issues not raised in an 18 U.S.C. § 3402 appeal to the district court. [1] However, the statutory framework, rules of procedure, our precedent, and the law of the case doctrine support a conclusion that a defendant abandons issues not raised on appeal to the district court. After being tried and convicted by a magistrate judge, Pilati appealed to the district court pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3402. In all cases of conviction by a United States magistrate judge an appeal of right shall lie from the judgment of the magistrate judge to a judge of the district court of the district in which the offense was committed. 18 U.S.C. § 3402. The defendant is not entitled to a trial de novo by a district judge. The scope of the appeal is the same as in an appeal to the court of appeals from a judgment entered by a district judge. Fed.R.Crim.P. 58(g)(2)(D). We have held we lack jurisdiction to entertain a direct appeal from a conviction by a magistrate judge when a defendant fails to first appeal his conviction to the district court. Midway Mfg. Co. v. Kruckenberg, 720 F.2d 653, 654 (11th Cir. 1983). Our review is essentially a second tier of appellate review, and [i]n our review we apply to the magistrate the same standard used by the district court. United States v. Peck, 545 F.2d 962, 964 (5th Cir.1977). [2] Review by the district court of a conviction before the magistrate is not a trial de novo but is the same as review by a court of appeals of a decision by a district court. Id. The law of the case doctrine supports a decision to disallow a second-tier challenge to issues a defendant failed to raise when appealing to the district court. Under the law of the case doctrine, a legal decision made at one stage of the litigation, unchallenged in a subsequent appeal when the opportunity existed, becomes the law of the case for future stages of the same litigation, and the parties are deemed to have waived the right to challenge that decision at a later time. United States v. Escobar-Urrego, 110 F.3d 1556, 1560 (11th Cir.1997). Accordingly, when on appeal a defendant fails to raise an issue when the opportunity is presented, he waives that argument. United States v. Mesa, 247 F.3d 1165, 1171 n. 6 (11th Cir.2001). [W]aiver is the `intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right,' United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1777, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938)), and waived or abandoned claims are not reviewed on appeal, United States v. Lewis, 492 F.3d 1219, 1221 (11th Cir.2007) (en banc). Pilati raises numerous issues that are beyond the scope of this second-tier appeal. While we have not explicitly addressed whether a defendant waives or abandons an issue by failing to raise it on appeal to the district court, we now hold that a defendant waives or abandons all issues not raised on appeal to the district court in an 18 U.S.C. § 3402 appeal. Accordingly, Pilati's issues I-VIII and X-XII [3] are not properly before this court because they have been waived or abandoned.