Opinion ID: 2747913
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Herrick Warrant and the Motion to

Text: Reconsider Franz also attacks the Herrick Warrant, which authorized a search of the computer drives seized from his house. The Herrick Warrant was sealed, and Franz did not receive a copy of it or its supporting documents until March 2012, thirty-one months after it was executed and just over two months after he was indicted for receipt and possession of child pornography. He contends that the failure to serve the warrant at the time of the search violated Rule 41(f)(1)(C) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure16 and amounted to a due process violation, so that the evidence obtained from the warrant must be suppressed. The government responds that Franz waived his challenge to the Herrick Warrant by failing to timely raise it before the District Court. “[A] suppression argument raised for the first time on appeal is waived (i.e., completely barred) absent good cause.” United States v. Rose, 538 F.3d 175, 182 (3d Cir. 2008) (applying Fed. R. Crim. P. 12). That rule applies “not only where the defendant failed to file a suppression motion at all in the district court, but also where he filed one but did not include the issues raised on appeal.” Id. (citing United States v. Lockett, 406 F.3d 207, 212 (3d Cir. 2005)). Furthermore, “[a] fleeting reference or vague allusion 16 Rule 41 states, “The officer executing the warrant must give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken to the person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken or leave a copy of the warrant and receipt at the place where the officer took the property.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(f)(1)(C). 26 to an issue will not suffice to preserve it for appeal[.] Rather, a party must unequivocally put its position before the trial court at a point and in a manner that permits the court to consider its merits.” United States v. Dupree, 617 F.3d 724, 728 (3d Cir. 2010) (alterations in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Franz did not challenge the Herrick Warrant based on Rule 41 until his motion for reconsideration following the District Court’s ruling on his motion to suppress. Although he claims that he raised the issue in the motion to suppress itself, that motion challenged the Herrick Warrant based only on arguments of a lack of probable cause and a lack of particularity. During the suppression hearing, defense counsel elicited testimony from a prosecution witness stating that Franz was not served a copy of the warrant until March 2012, but the defense did not argue at that time that the delay amounted to a violation of due process or Rule 41. At the end of the hearing, the District Court asked Franz and the government to provide briefing on the meaning of the language in both the Nardinger and Herrick Warrants authorizing a copy of the warrants to be left with Franz pursuant to Rule 41. Franz later submitted proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law that included a finding that the Herrick Warrant provided “that agents executing the search warrant [were] authorized as required by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(d) to leave a copy of the search warrant and receipt for the property with the person searched or at the property searched.” (App. at 295.) Franz also proposed a finding that the government had not given him a copy of the Herrick Warrant until March 2012. Franz did not present any 27 legal argument asserting that the delay constituted a basis for relief. Nor did he propose any legal conclusions invoking Rule 41 or due process. Rather, he simply proposed a conclusion that the Herrick Warrant was a “piggy back warrant” that would not have been issued but for the invalid Nardinger Warrant. (App. at 302.) Therefore, the proposed findings did not preserve the issue for appeal because they failed to call it to the District Court’s attention and permit the Court to rule on the argument as Franz later advanced it in his motion for reconsideration.17 The question thus becomes whether Franz’s subsequent motion for reconsideration was sufficient to preserve the issue for appeal. In United States v. Dupree, we concluded that raising an argument for the first time in a motion for reconsideration results in waiver of that argument for purposes of appeal. 617 F.3d at 732; see also id. at 738 (Fisher, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (agreeing with the lead opinion’s waiver analysis regarding motions to reconsider). We held that the government had “waived its … argument by failing to raise it before the District Court ruled on [the] motion to suppress – i.e., by the ‘deadline’ set by Rule 12(e).” Id. at 732 (lead opinion). 17 The government, on the other hand, submitted proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law stating that the failure to serve the Herrick Warrant on Franz for thirtyone months did not constitute a violation of Rule 41(f). Franz did not respond to that point in his reply to the government’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. Nor did Franz respond to that point in a supplemental memorandum, which the docket identified as an affidavit, filed after the hearing in support of his motion to suppress. 28 Furthermore, the government had not established good cause under Rule 12(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure for failing to raise the theory earlier.18 Id. Under Dupree, then, Franz’s Rule 41 and due process arguments are waived because he raised them for the first time in his motion for reconsideration, and he has not established good cause for his failure to raise the arguments earlier.19 18 Barring Congressional action to prevent the change, the “good cause” exemption now in Rule 12(e) will be relocated to subpart (c)(3) of Rule 12, effective December 1, 2014. Fed. R. Crim. P. 12 Committee Notes on Rules – 2014 Amendment. The amendment also removes any reference to “waiver” from what will be subpart (c)(3). Id. The parties have not raised, and we thus have no occasion to consider, the impact of the amendment on our prior holding that Rule 12 completely bars review. See Rose, 538 F.3d at 184 (concluding that plain error review is unavailable given Rule 12’s explicit use of the term “waiver”). 19 In Dupree, we concluded that the challenge to the initial ruling on the motion to suppress was waived but the challenge to the denial of the motion for reconsideration was not. Dupree, 617 F.3d at 732. Thus, while Franz’s challenge to the denial of the suppression motion is unpreserved, we may still review the denial of the motion for reconsideration to determine whether his Rule 41 and due process arguments should be considered. A motion for reconsideration is “not for addressing arguments that a party should have raised earlier.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The purpose of such motions “is to correct a clear error of law or to prevent a manifest injustice in the District Court’s original ruling.” Id. Here, the District Court ruled that even if the Herrick Warrant was tainted by the particularity problems in 29