Opinion ID: 6104768
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The effectively alone Finding.

Text: The district court found -- in part -- because Trooper Lynch was effectively alone in attending to Reyes throughout the stop, that Trooper Lynch's use of handcuffs was reasonably 6 Moreover, Reyes has not succeeded in proving that Trooper Lynch's testimony was inherently implausible. While there may be some appeal to Reyes's contention that the label 20.20 on the Administrative Journal Extract translated to 8:20 p.m. such that a court could find that Reyes was in handcuffs for 35 minutes, that argument was presented to and rejected by the district court; instead, the trial court apparently chose to credit Trooper Lynch's testimony that the entry 20.20 did not represent a time and that the other times recorded in the Administrative Journal Extract were inaccurate. Because a district court's choice between two plausible competing interpretations of the facts cannot be clearly erroneous, United States v. Weidul, 325 F.3d 50, 53 (1st Cir. 2003) (citing United States v. Palmer, 203 F.3d 55, 60 (1st Cir. 2000)), Reyes has not satisfied his burden and we must respect the district court's superior vantage point on this matter, Espinoza, 490 F.3d at 46 (citing Zapata, 18 F.3d at 975). 7 As previously stated, in light of its finding of consent, the district court further ruled that both the warrantless search of Reyes's car and the admission at trial of the physical evidence seized therein were permissible. In our forthcoming discussion regarding Reyes's argument that the district court's denial order did not reflect Supreme Court guidance, as embodied in Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015), we reject Reyes's Rodriguezbased contention and affirm these additional consent rulings of the district court. Infra p. 21–32. - 19 - necessary to mitigate legitimate safety concerns presented by the specific facts and circumstances of the stop. More broadly, the district court assessed that nothing that transpired during the stop -- including the handcuffing of Reyes -- transformed the investigatory detention of Reyes into a de facto arrest in which administration of Miranda rights was necessary. Accordingly, as Mirandization of Reyes was not required, the District Court found Reyes's statements made during the execution of the search to be admissible. On appeal, Reyes argues that because on-the-scene officers outnumbered Reyes during the stop and because additional officers covertly monitored the stop from a parking lot nearby, the district court's finding that Trooper Lynch was 'effectively alone' cannot survive appellate review even under the deferential clear error standard. While Reyes raises a nonfrivolous challenge to the district court's effectively alone finding, ultimately, we must ask what the impact of any such finding of clear error would be: Would it transform the detention of Reyes into a de facto arrest, such that Reyes's statements were improperly admitted at trial given the lack of Miranda warnings? Of particular -- and dispositive -- note, Reyes does not articulate such an argument on appeal; the most he says is that the district court's order denying his motion to suppress relied on the erroneous finding of fact that Trooper Lynch was - 20 - effectively alone during the stop without referencing Miranda, let alone explaining the broader admissibility consequences of such a factual error. It cannot be said that these admissibility consequences are inherent in Reyes's effectively alone contention such that explicit argumentation is unnecessary, and [w]e [do] not consider potentially applicable arguments that are not squarely presented in a party's appellate brief, BaybankMiddlesex v. Ralar Distribs., Inc., 69 F.3d 1200, 1203–04 n.5 (1st Cir. 1995) (citing United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990)). A litigant must 'spell out [his] arguments squarely and distinctly,' or else forever hold [his] peace. Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17 (quoting Rivera-Gomez v. de Castro, 843 F.2d 631, 635 (1st Cir. 1988)). Because we find that Reyes has waived the broader admissibility argument, we conclude that, even assuming arguendo error in the district court's effectively alone finding, that error is of no consequence. At least on the basis argued by Reyes, we discern no reason to disturb the district court's decision denying the motion to suppress Reyes's statements made during the stop.