Opinion ID: 4540052
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Arterbury’s Case

Text: In Ashe, the Court noted that collateral estoppel “stands for an extremely important principle in our adversary system of justice. It means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that 4 The government contends that Evans is not good law even in its circuit. It cites Showery v. Samaniego, 814 F.2d 200, 203 (5th Cir. 1987), for the proposition that “[w]e are unpersuaded, however, by [the defendant’s] attempts to erect a due process basis, independent of the double jeopardy clause, for the application of collateral estoppel.” Appellee’s Br. at 24 (internal quotation marks omitted). 14 issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit.”5 397 U.S. at 443. The Court further stated that “the rule of collateral estoppel in criminal cases is not to be applied with the hypertechnical and archaic approach of a 19th century pleading book, but with realism and rationality.” Id. at 444. To that end, collateral estoppel requires two showings before barring re-litigation of an issue: “(1) the issue to be precluded must have been actually and necessarily decided in the prior case, and (2) the party against whom collateral estoppel is invoked must have had a full and fair opportunity in the earlier case to litigate the issue to be precluded.” Willner v. Budig, 848 F.2d 1032, 1034 (10th Cir. 1988) (per curiam) (citing Ten Mile Indus. Park v. W. Plains Serv. Corp., 810 F.2d 1518, 1523 (10th Cir. 1987)). A “full and fair opportunity” to litigate the issue includes: (1) “that the parties were fully heard,” (2) “that the court supported its decision with a reasoned opinion,” and (3) “that the decision was subject to appeal or was in fact reviewed on appeal.” DiGiangiemo, 528 F.2d at 1265 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We look to these factors to determine if the government is precluded from relitigating the suppression motion. Arterbury has satisfied all these requirements. In 2016, the district court decided the suppression issue after full briefing and argument by the parties. And after the court suppressed the evidence, the government not only had an opportunity 5 See also Willner v. Budig, 848 F.2d 1032, 1034 (10th Cir. 1988) (per curiam) (noting that collateral estoppel bars “the relitigation of factual or legal issues that were decided in a previous case”). 15 to appeal, it did so. For its own reasons, it chose to dismiss its appeal without briefing it. Having failed to obtain a ruling on appeal, the government now argues that Arterbury has not shown that his earlier prosecution was finally adjudicated— because the district court dismissed the case without prejudice.6 Regarding the finality requirement, we turn to Loera, 714 F.3d at 1029. In that case, Judge Posner noted that in DiGiangiemo “Judge Friendly had pointed out the paradoxical effects of being picky about the finality of the judgment sought to be used as collateral estoppel.” Id. (citing 528 F.2d at 1265–66). Contrasting two situations in which the trial court had granted a suppression motion—one before trial, the other after it had begun—Judge Posner declared that “[t]he difference in the stage of the proceeding at which the judge ruled shouldn’t affect whether the issue can be revisited in the second proceeding.” Id. at 1030. He concluded by noting that “[f]or these purposes, then, the dismissal of the first indictment should be treated as if it were a final judgment and the evidentiary ruling that the judge made in that first proceeding should be given collateral estoppel effect.” Id. We agree with this reasoning.7 6 The district court mixed the suppression issue with whether the government could re-prosecute Arterbury. Arterbury II, 322 F. Supp. 3d at 1204. 7 See also B. Willis, C.P.A., Inc. v. BNSF Ry. Corp., 531 F.3d 1282, 1301 (10th Cir. 2008) (“To invoke issue preclusion, there need not be a prior adjudication on the merits (as is often the case with res judicata) but only a final determination of a material issue common to both cases.” (internal quotation marks and citation quotation omitted)); 18A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure § 4434 (3d ed., Apr. 2020 update) (noting “[r]ecent decisions have relaxed traditional views of the finality requirement by 16 For collateral-estoppel purposes, we note that the government had every reason to appeal the unfavorable suppression ruling in Mr. Arterbury’s case. The suppression order sounded the death knell for the government’s case—simply put, no child-pornography evidence, no prosecution. And as a leading commentator puts it, “[i]n those jurisdictions where the prosecution may take an interlocutory appeal, it is quite proper to view the failure to appeal as rendering the pretrial order a final determination . . . so that the order would be binding even in the event of a dismissal and reinstitution of the charges.” 6 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 11.2(f) (5th ed., Oct. 2018 update) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Along the same line, this commentator notes that “if interlocutory appeal is available to the prosecution but not exercised in a particular case, then surely the prosecution should not be able to raise with the trial judge those objections to the pretrial ruling he could have raised by appeal.” Id. (footnote omitted). Because Arterbury was prosecuted in federal court, he can rely on collateral estoppel under the federal common law. The district court erred in limiting Arterbury’s collateral-estoppel claim to a “due process-oriented, federal rule of criminal collateral estoppel.” Arterbury II, 322 F. Supp. 3d at 1203. Though the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause incorporates collateral-estoppel principles, it does not do so at the expense of federal common-law collateral estoppel. Instead, it applying issue preclusion to . . . determinations of liability that have not yet been completed by an award of damages or other relief,” particularly when the issue has been resolved “by appeal prior to final judgment”). 17 permits a state defendant a federal constitutional challenge in a federal court. See Smith v. Dinwiddie, 510 F.3d 1180, 1187 (10th Cir. 2007) (noting that “state courts are constitutionally required to apply principles of collateral estoppel in criminal cases if and only if the protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause have been triggered”). Whether this court or the Supreme Court ever holds that the Due Process Clause incorporates collateral-estoppel principles—an issue we need not and do not reach today—collateral estoppel under federal common-law collateral estoppel will remain available to federal defendants. We conclude that the district court erred by imposing due-process conditions on Arterbury’s common-law collateral-estoppel defense. When Arterbury established the elements of collateral estoppel (and asserted it defensively, of course), the district court was obliged to enforce its earlier suppression order. See Bravo-Fernandez v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 352, 356 (2016) (“In criminal prosecutions, as in civil litigation, the issue-preclusion principle means that ‘when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit.’” (quoting Ashe, 397 U.S. at 443)). Though a due-process right may affect future cases involving convicted state defendants unable to rely on federal common-law criminal collateral estoppel, Arterbury may rely on this defense as a convicted federal defendant. For these reasons, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion in not enforcing its earlier suppression order. 18 III. The change-in-law exception to collateral estoppel does not apply here. In arguing for affirmance, the government asserts that we can resolve this case by applying a change-in-law exception—even if collateral estoppel applies here. In short, it argues that “Workman changed the relevant law.” Appellee’s Br. at 19. But as in the district court, the government has supplied no authority applying the change-in-law exception to criminal collateral estoppel. And even assuming for argument’s sake that the change-in-law exception does apply to criminal collateral estoppel, the exception would not apply here. Under the civil-law variant of the issue-preclusion doctrine, the change-in-law exception allows a party to relitigate a previously decided issue when the “controlling facts or legal principles have changed significantly since” the judgment was issued. Montana, 440 U.S. at 155; see also Comm’r v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 600 (1948) (collateral estoppel applies only when “the controlling facts and applicable legal rules remain unchanged”). The government claims that Workman changed the law and thus it is permitted to relitigate the suppression issue. Any discussion of a change-in-law exception to criminal collateral estoppel requires an answer to a preliminary question—what suffices as the “law” later changed? At oral argument, the government asserted that the “law” is the district court’s 2016 ruling that the Leon good-faith exception does not apply here. As the “changed law,” the government relies on Workman. This argument fails for two independent reasons. 19 First, the district court’s 2016 ruling did not establish Tenth Circuit law. The government provides no authority supporting its position that a district court can set the “law” for change-of-law purposes. Instead, Workman set the circuit law. To present a viable change-of-law claim, the government would need a different situation. For instance, again even assuming the exception applies in criminal cases, the government might prevail if it had pursued its Arterbury interlocutory appeal to a defeat, only to have a Workman en banc court go the other direction. The government offers nothing of the sort. Second, Workman did not change the law. As Workman itself noted, it reached its result by applying principles from established Supreme Court cases. In Workman, we concluded that “the Leon exception applies even if the magistrate judge had exceeded geographic constraints in issuing the warrant,” rejecting Mr. Workman’s competing argument as foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent. 863 F.3d at 1318 (citations omitted); see id. at 1319 (relying on Supreme Court precedent in Herring, 555 U.S. at 137, where the Court applied the Leon good-faith exception when a “third party stated that an outstanding warrant existed even though it had been recalled,” and Arizona, 514 U.S. at 4, where the Court similarly applied the Leon exception when a “third party programmed information into a computer stating that a warrant had remained even though it hadn’t”). Workman did not change any governing legal principles—it applied longestablished ones. 20