Opinion ID: 203974
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Government's Motion for Reconsideration

Text: The district court's denial of a motion to reconsider is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Roberts, 978 F.2d 17, 20 (1st Cir.1992). A district court abuses its discretion when a relevant factor deserving of significant weight is overlooked, or when an improper factor is accorded significant weight, or when the court considers the appropriate mix of factors, but commits a palpable error of judgment in calibrating the decisional scales. Id. at 21. When faced with a motion for reconsideration, district courts should apply an interests-of-justice test. See Greene v. Union Mut. Life Ins. Co. of Am., 764 F.2d 19, 23 (1st Cir.1985). The government contends that, under our decision in Roberts, district courts should consider seven rules of thumb in making the interests-of-justice determination. It insists that the district court's ruling is inconsistent with the reasoning of Roberts, and that the court abused its discretion by failing to consider all of the issues presented in the government's motion. In particular, in that motion, the government argued that it had discovered new evidence of dispositive significance for the defendant's prior motion to suppress. Attached to the government's motion was an affidavit from Agent Roberto stating that he had prepared a draft affidavit in October 2006 to support a search warrant for the 85 Surrey Street # 1 apartment, and that he had intended to apply for a warrant once the November 16 interview was completed. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for reconsideration. First, the Roberts factors, on which the government's analysis heavily relies, are neither necessary to determining the interests of justice in every evaluation of a motion for reconsideration, nor are they particularly appropriate in this case. See Roberts, 978 F.2d at 22. In Roberts, a district court summarily granted the defendant's motion to suppress after the government failed to timely file an opposition, missing the deadline by several days. Id. at 18. The government moved for reconsideration, explaining that it had misinterpreted the local rule governing filing deadlines. The court accepted the government's explanation and agreed to reconsider, but nevertheless refused to determine the suppression issue on the merits, concluding that the circumstances constituted neither good cause nor excusable neglect for the late filing. Id. at 19. We vacated the court's order. Id. at 20. After reaffirming that motions for reconsideration are subject to an interests-of-justice test, we stated, [i]n determining this motion to reconsider the court's response to the belated filing before us, it would have helped had the district court examined the following seven factors.... [6] Id. at 21 (emphasis added). Predictably, several of these factors concerned timeliness, the reason for the late filing, and prejudice to the other party because of the late filing. As we explained, [w]e do not say that courts must necessarily look at each and all of these factors in every case, or that courts cannot, in a proper case, examine other factors. Id. at 22. Indeed, in a recent case examining a district court's denial of a motion to reconsider based on new evidence, we did not mention the Roberts factors. See Douglas v. York County, 360 F.3d 286, 290-91 (1st Cir.2004); see also Ruiz-Rivera v. IRS, 93 Fed.Appx. 244, 246 (1st Cir.2004) (applying interests-of-justice test without discussing Roberts ). Moreover, the government did not ask the district court to apply the Roberts factors to its motion below. There is thus no reason to conclude, as the government suggests we should, that the [district] court's failure to address substantively the Roberts factors ... undercuts the deference that would ordinarily be due a district court's order denying reconsideration. [7] Moreover, in contrast to Roberts, this case does not concern an initial order summarily entered after one party failed to make a timely filing. Instead, we have a fully reasoned decision entered after a suppression hearing. Also, the language of the court's order denying the motion for reconsideration suggests that the court did test the government's arguments against the merits of its earlier suppression decision, but simply decided not to change its position. Consequently, several of the Roberts factorsdegree of tardiness, reasons for tardiness, and the utility of the pleadingdo not apply because the court never asked why the government had not presented the newly discovered evidence at the time of the suppression hearing. Instead, the court's order denying the motion for reconsideration appears to have reflected an evaluation of the merits of the suppression order in light of the arguments made in the motion for reconsideration. The government's suggestion that the district court simply did not consider the issues presented in the government's motion is unfounded. In fact, in its order denying the motion for reconsideration, the district court discussed the substance of some of the government's claims. The government had asked the district court to revisit its holding that the protective sweep was unlawful because the agents who performed the sweep lacked an articulable basis for suspecting that the apartment harbored dangerous individuals. The government argued that the district court should consider the collective knowledge of the officers in the apartment, including Agent Roberto, who was aware of Siciliano's conduct during the interview and thus did have an articulable basis for suspecting that there could be others in the apartment involved in manufacturing MDMA who posed a danger to the officers. In its motion denying reconsideration, the court analyzed the government's argument. It concluded that the argument did not require it to revise its previous holding, since even if the collective knowledge doctrine applied, the officers who conducted the sweep were summoned before Agent Roberto began the interview. Notably, the government does not appeal the district court's treatment of the collective knowledge issue. Instead, because the court's order does not include a similarly detailed analysis of its rejection of the significance of the October 2006 draft affidavit, the government argues that the court abused its discretion in denying the motion for reconsideration. The premise of this argumentthat a court denying a motion for reconsideration must offer a reasoned explanation of its disposition of every argument made in the motion, or otherwise risk abusing its discretionis hopeless. See Roque-Rodriguez v. Lema Moya, 926 F.2d 103, 105 & n. 3 (1st Cir. 1991) (noting that, in the Rule 56 context, a district court's deni[al] [of a] motion without explanation is permissible) (citing Domegan v. Fair, 859 F.2d 1059, 1065-66 (1st Cir.1988)); Earnhardt v. Puerto Rico, 744 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1984) (district court did not abuse discretion by declining to give reasons for denying motion to alter or amend judgment, but we must assume that the motion received careful consideration). Moreover, even in the absence of an explanation of the court's reasons for rejecting the significance of Agent Roberto's affidavit, the language of the court's order suggests that it did consider all of the arguments but chose to address one specifically: The court is not inclined to reconsider its determination that the officers would not have sought a warrant absent the protective sweep. With regard to the government's collective knowledge argument.... Also, the government has overstated the legal significance of the October 2006 draft affidavit. Contrary to the government's assertion, none of the cases cited stand for the proposition that the mere existence of a partially completed draft affidavit, written sometime before the execution of an unlawful search, proves that the government would have sought the subsequent search warrant regardless of the unlawful search. Rather, in the authorities cited by the government, officers were actively preparing a search warrant affidavit when an unlawful search occurred. See United States v. Hobbs, 509 F.3d 353, 362 (7th Cir.2007) (officers writing affidavit at the same time unlawful search occurred); United States v. Walton, 56 F.3d 551, 554 (4th Cir.1995) (officers had been preparing the search warrant affidavit for several days prior to the garage entry, and added the observations from that illegal entry only at the last moment). [8] From the fact that the officers were actively preparing a search warrant affidavit, as well as other facts, the courts inferred that the officers would have acquired the warrant even if the unlawful search had not occurred. See, e.g., Hobbs, 509 F.3d at 357-58 (describing how, while two officers met at the Peoria Police Department to prepare a complaint for a search warrant for [the defendant's] home, other officers independently conducted an unlawful search of the home). Here, in contrast, Agent Roberto testified at the suppression hearing that he decided not to obtain a warrant after completing the trash pull, which occurred on October 30, 2006. Instead, he had decided to seek other evidence that there was manufacturing going on, and, as he characterized the trash pull, it did not have any bearing on the chemical ordering. Thus, even if Agent Roberto drafted an affidavit for a search warrant sometime in October 2006, he decided after that point not to obtain a warrant because he lacked evidence of manufacturing. In short, the October 2006 draft warrant is not dispositive evidence that the officers would have sought the November 16 search warrant even if they had not observed gel capsules and powder during the protective sweep. For all of the reasons stated, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the government's submission did not require it to reconsider its determination that the officers would not have sought a warrant without the evidence discovered during the unlawful protective sweep. Affirmed.