Opinion ID: 682770
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Any Reasonable View of the Evidence Standard

Text: 41 The majority opinion admits that the district court's factual findings are unfortunately limited to finding that the stop was not pretextual, that Roberts smelled a 'masking odor' from the truck when Bloomfield exited, and that the dog was summoned promptly and arrived within a reasonable time. Maj. op. at 913. Unfortunately, the majority opinion moves forward without hesitation to affirm a felony conviction despite the inadequately developed district court record. The majority opinion justifies its refusal to remand by adopting the any reasonable view of the evidence standard for the review of a district court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence. This standard allows an appeals court to scour the record in a search for material to bolster a district court's ruling which is based on insufficient findings of fact. Such findings, however, are clearly mandated by Rule 12(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The plain language of the Rule provides in part: Where factual issues are involved in determining a motion, the court shall state its essential findings on the record. Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(e) (emphasis added). Two other circuits have adopted a plain reading of the Rule and will remand a case for more factual findings when a district court fails to adhere to the clear mandate of the Rule. See United States v. Moore, 936 F.2d 287, 288 (6th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 3052, 120 L.Ed.2d 918 (1992); accord United States v. Carbajal, 956 F.2d 924, 930-31 (9th Cir.1992); United States v. Prieto-Villa, 910 F.2d 601, 610 (9th Cir.1990). I believe that the requirements of Rule 12(e) are clear, and I would join the Sixth and Ninth Circuits in demanding strict compliance with Rule 12(e). The majority chooses to rely on a more relaxed interpretation of Rule 12(e) which three other circuits appear to have adopted. See, e.g., United States v. Harley, 990 F.2d 1340, 1341 (D.C.Cir.) (Harley ), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 236, 126 L.Ed.2d 190 (1993); accord United States v. Griffin, 7 F.3d 1512, 1516 (10th Cir.1993) (Griffin ); United States v. Yeagin, 927 F.2d 798, 800 (5th Cir.1991) (Yeagin ). This split between the circuits over Rule 12(e) confuses the important question of how we are to understand the division of tasks between district and appellate courts within our judicial hierarchy. I believe that the majority opinion's understanding of Rule 12(e) improperly diminishes the district court's vital function as the finder of fact based on evidence which it believes to be credible in suppression hearings.
42 Even assuming the any reasonable view of the evidence standard is applicable to Rule 12(e), I believe nonetheless that the majority opinion has wrongly applied it in this particular case. Cases from two of the three circuits which the majority opinion relies upon have applied this standard where the circumstances on the record either made only one conclusion possible or left no doubt as to the district court's assessment of credibility. In such narrow instances, the absence of Rule 12(e) findings does not impede an appeals court's ability to conduct a proper review. This limited application of the standard is made clear by the D.C. Circuit in its discussion of the policy behind Rule 12(e) in United States v. Williams: 43 When a district court's ruling on a pretrial motion involves factual issues, Rule 12(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure commands the court to state its essential findings on the record. The rule serves several functions. Findings on the record inform the parties and other interested persons of the grounds of the ruling, add discipline to the process of judicial decision-making and enable appellate courts properly to perform their reviewing function. If the district court not only fails to make essential findings on the record, but also expresses nothing in the way of legal reasoning, if it simply announces a result, it may frustrate these objectives. We say may because there are cases in which the facts are so certain and the legal consequences so apparent, that little guesswork is needed to determine the grounds for the ruling. 951 F.2d 1287, 1288 (D.C.Cir.1992) (emphasis added). This opening paragraph of the court's opinion indicates that cases which can be excepted from the Rule 12(e) mandate are limited to those matters where the facts are certain and little guesswork is involved. The Williams court further noted that its gloss on Rule 12(e) is meant to prevent a windfall to the losing party on the suppression motion in cases where the trial court omits a finding apparent on the face of the record, or when, under any possible view of the record, the district court could have reached but one result. Id. at 1291 (citations omitted). The Williams court's approach to Rule 12(e) has a much narrower scope than the approach taken by the majority here today. 1 44 A subsequent opinion from the D.C. Circuit strongly suggests that the any reasonable view of the evidence standard should have the very limited application which I advocate. In United States v. Taylor, 997 F.2d 1551, 1554-55 (D.C.Cir.1993) (Taylor ), the court said: [W]e have upheld denials of suppression motions absent clear findings of fact and conclusions of law when 'we [could] readily affirm the denial' based upon an argument made by the government below and supported by evidence either uncontested or found credible by the District Court. (Emphasis added.) To support this limited proposition, the court cited to Harley, the very same case which the majority opinion relies on in part to justify its considerably broader application of the any reasonable view of the evidence standard to avoid remand. See 997 F.2d at 1555. In Taylor, the court determined the case did not require remand, even though the district court failed to state on the record its essential findings of facts, as required by Rule 12(e), because [t]he essentially uncontested facts of this case are on all fours with a number of other cases in which this court has affirmed findings of probable cause. Id. at 1554 (emphasis added). In the present case, Bloomfield contested many of the factors from the Presentence Investigation Report (PSR) which the majority opinion sees fit to rely upon in its denial of remand. The courts in Taylor and Williams did not need to confront the absence of a credibility assessment from the district court because their cases involved uncontested facts which required little guesswork. 45 In Griffin, a case from the Tenth Circuit which the majority opinion relies upon for its version of the any reasonable view of the evidence standard, the court said: We have before us no specific or detailed findings of fact, only the trial court's statement that the Government's evidence was credible and defendant's was not. 7 F.3d at 1516. The importance of this information to an appellate court cannot be overlooked. If the district court said on the record whose evidence it believed and whose it did not, a court of appeals can review the record and find evidence presented by the credible party to support the district court's ruling. This is entirely consistent with the understanding which results from a careful reading of the D.C. Circuit's opinions in Williams and Taylor. In such a case, there is no danger that the appeals court might rely on evidence which was not found to be credible. The Griffin court explained that because the trial court made this general credibility assessment, it could decide the case on the assumption that the testimony of the police officers was true; thus, there were not factual issues, only legal issues. Id. 46 If the any reasonable view of the evidence standard is to apply at all, I believe that it should apply only where the trial court makes clear its assessment of witness credibility. In the present case, a strict application of Rule 12(e) would not afford Bloomfield a windfall. We have only the disputed testimony of Trooper Roberts upon which to rely. Thus, the trial court's assessment of his credibility as a witness is of the utmost importance. Apparently aware of this problem, the majority opinion states: Although, on the issue of reasonable suspicion, the district court specially found only that Roberts did smell a 'masking odor' from the truck, its finding that this gave rise to reasonable suspicion that Bloomfield was carrying drugs indicates that the court treated Roberts' testimony at the suppression hearing as credible. Maj. op. at 915. This is the first step in the majority's analytic alchemy. Because the district court believed one fact presented through Roberts' testimony, the majority opinion assumes that the other testimony given by Roberts, which implicitly formed the basis of the judge's ruling, was also credible. [C]redibility determinations are not an all-or-nothing proposition. United States v. Cassidy, 6 F.3d 554, 557 (8th Cir.1993). I therefore find it difficult to understand how the majority opinion can implicitly assume that the rest of Roberts' testimony was as credible as that which formed the basis of the district court's lone factual finding as to reasonable suspicion. Except for a very brief comment with regard to the presence of a strong odor, the district court made no findings about the credibility of any other testimony. The proper application of Rule 12(e) would allow us to review, after remand, the substance of a district court's ruling on a suppression motion without the danger of relying on evidence that may lack credibility. 2 Without a remand for further findings, we have no way of knowing, on this record, which testimony, other than the trooper's detection of a deodorant smell, the district court found credible. 47 The harm to Bloomfield which results from the majority's application of this standard is obvious. The majority cites numerous facts from the PSR to support its conclusion as to reasonable suspicion which were taken from Roberts' testimony at the suppression hearing. This manipulation of the record elevates facts from the PSR to the level of a district court's findings of fact. The district court's acceptance of a PSR for purposes of sentencing is not the same as a district court's finding of fact. The underdeveloped record we have on appeal simply leaves us with too much guesswork. The majority opinion avoids this obstacle to proper appellate review by engaging in post-hoc characterization which magically converts disputed testimony in the record into facts which the district court implicitly found. The approach disregards the established principle that appeals courts should refuse to rule before the record is fully developed. See Public Service Comm. v. Wisconsin Telephone Co., 289 U.S. 67, 69, 53 S.Ct. 514, 514-15, 77 L.Ed. 1036 (1933) ([I]t is always desirable that an appellate court should be adequately advised of the basis of the determination of the court below....). Therefore, I would remand this case to the district court for the factual findings required under Rule 12(e).