Court Opinion

ID: 9386144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-11 17:00:44.32141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:00.761911
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

                                      No. 21-1730
                                   ________________

                            UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

                                             v.

                             SCOTT LANE a/k/a NYC Perv,
                                  a/k/a John Doe-2,

                                                  Appellant

                     On Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
                              (D.C. No. 1-16-cr-00082-003)
                         District Judge: Honorable Yvette Kane

                      Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
                                  on October 21, 2022

            Before: GREENAWAY, JR., MATEY and ROTH, Circuit Judges

                              (Opinion filed: April 11, 2023)

                                   ________________

                                        OPINION *

*
 This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
ROTH, Circuit Judge

      Scott Lane contends in this appeal that the District Court erred in denying his motion

to suppress evidence obtained during an interrogation. He asserts that the evidence should

have been suppressed because law enforcement violated his Miranda rights by continuing

to question him after he invoked his rights. However, the Miranda challenge that he raised

in the District Court was a different one: that he never received a Miranda warning before

questioning began. Because Lane failed to raise the argument of continuing questioning

after invocation of his Miranda rights in the District Court, he waived that ground for

appeal. Thus, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

                                           I.

      During a videoconference, Lane and several other individuals watched one member

of the videoconference call sexually abuse a six-year-old boy. After tracking his IP

address, law enforcement found Lane. They went to his studio apartment, were granted

entry by Lane’s roommate, and woke Lane. 1

      Special Agent Krause then read Lane his Miranda rights. Krause handed him a

waiver form and gave him a moment to read it to himself. Krause asked Lane if he would

be willing to waive his rights and talk to him and the other agents. Lane agreed. Krause

then began questioning Lane. 2 Lane did not feel comfortable answering certain questions

“without someone present,” as he was concerned about legal implications. 3 Still, the

1
  2Appx. 8–11.
2
  There were other law enforcement officials present at his questioning, but Krause did
the majority of the questioning.
3
  2Appx. 59.
                                            2
questioning continued until Lane said that he “didn’t want to speak any further about what

he saw because he didn’t know the law.” He then asked for an attorney. 4 At that point,

questioning ceased.

       Lane later moved to suppress the statement he gave to law enforcement. In his

motion to suppress, Lane asserted that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated.

Lane first stated that he was subject to a custodial interrogation absent Miranda warnings.

Lane then stated that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated because he was questioned

post-indictment with no lawyer present.

       The District Court held a suppression hearing on Lane’s motion. At the suppression

hearing, Krause testified that he read Lane his Miranda rights from a Miranda waiver, gave

the Miranda waiver to Lane, and then provided Lane with an opportunity to read it to

himself. Lane’s own testimony confirms that he did sign the form. Krause also testified

that no agent informed Lane that he was under investigation.

       The District Court denied Lane’s motion. The court found that Lane’s initials and

signature on the Miranda waiver contradicted his argument that he had never received his

warnings in the first instance. 5 Moreover, because the Miranda warnings were proper, the

court found Lane’s statements to law enforcement to be voluntary. 6 The court also found

4
  2Appx.18.
5
  Appx. 28.
6
  1Appx. 29 (citing United States v. Andrews, 231 F. App’x 174, 176-77 (3d. Cir. 2007)
for the proposition that “defendant’s statements [are] voluntary when police advised
defendant of his Miranda rights, gave defendant a written copy of the Miranda warnings,
and prompted defendant to read portions of the warnings aloud and write his initials after
each warning”).
                                            3
that Lane’s Sixth Amendment rights were not violated at that time because, despite his

indictment, “the validly-executed waiver of his Miranda rights constituted a knowing and

intelligent waiver of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.” 7

                                               II.

       The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231 because Lane violated a

federal statute. We have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

                                               III.

    “It is axiomatic that a party who fails to object to errors or to raise issues at trial waives

the right to complain on appeal.” 8 At the same time, “for parties to preserve an argument

for appeal, they must have raised the same argument in the District Court—merely raising

an issue that encompasses the appellate argument is not enough. Consequently, the degree

of particularity required to preserve an argument is exacting.” 9 “[A]bsent exceptional

circumstances, issues not raised before the district court are waived on appeal.” 10 Thus, “a

suppression argument raised for the first time on appeal is waived (i.e., completely barred)

absent good cause.” 11

7
  1Appx. 30 (citing United States v. Charria, 919 F.2d 842, 848 (2d Cir. 1990)).
8
  Fleck v. KDI Sylvan Pools, Inc., 981 F.2d 107, 116 (3d Cir. 1992).
9
  United States v. Joseph, 730 F.3d 336, 337 (3d Cir. 2013) (cleaned up).
10
   Fletcher-Harlee Corp. v. Pote Concrete Contractors, Inc., 482 F.3d 247, 253 (3d Cir.
2007) (citing Brenner v. Local 514, United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners, 927 F.2d 1283,
1298 (3d Cir. 1991)).
11
   United States v. Rose, 538 F.3d 175, 182 (3d Cir. 2008). “This rule applies not only
when defendants altogether fail to raise any suppression arguments in the District Court,
but also when defendants fail to raise particular arguments later advanced on appeal.”
Joseph, 730 F.3d at 338 (citing Rose, 538 F.3d at 182).
                                                4
       Our ruling in United States v. Joseph 12 is instructive. In that case, we found that,

“[a] legal challenge that presents multiple avenues for granting relief is a broad issue. But

if the legal challenge presents a single point of contention, which may not be recast or

reframed to address a conceptually distinct contention, then what has been advanced is an

argument.” 13 This distinction between an issue and an argument is crucial because “raising

an issue in the District Court is insufficient to preserve for appeal all arguments bearing on

that issue. Instead, to preserve a suppression argument, a party must make the same

argument in the District Court that he makes on appeal.” 14

       The issue here is the same in both the District Court and before us – violation of

Miranda rights. However, the arguments that Lane preserved are substantively different

from the argument that he raises to this Court. In the District Court, Lane claimed that his

Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated because he was not properly Mirandized.

The argument for the violation of his Fifth Amendment rights was that he never received

his Miranda warnings despite being subject to a custodial interrogation. The argument he

presented for the violation of his Sixth Amendment rights was that he should not have been

subject to a purportedly custodial interrogation after being indicted.

       According to his opening brief, the issue that Lane raises on appeal is “whether the

district court erred in denying the motion to suppress evidence where law enforcement

continued to interrogated [sic] appellant while in custodial detention, after he evoked [sic]

12
   Joseph, 730 F.3d at 338.
13
   Id. at 342.
14
   Id. at 341.
                                              5
his right to counsel, in violation of his fifth amendment rights.” 15 This is a substantively

different argument. The arguments in the District Court presumed that Lane did not receive

his Miranda warnings in the first instance. Yet the argument that Lane presents here is that

he did receive his Miranda warnings, but law enforcement violated them when agents

continued to question him after he asked for counsel.

       Lane contends that his “ability to seek review” was preserved when the District

Court accepted his plea agreement. More particularly, the plea agreement itself states that

Lane’s plea was conditional and did in fact “[reserve] the right on appeal to review the

adverse determinations made by the District Court regarding the pretrial motions [that he]

filed.” 16 Indeed, Lane did preserve the arguments that he made to the District Court.

However, those are not the argument before us. 17

       Accordingly, because Lane’s contention that questioning continued after he invoked

his Miranda rights was not presented to the District Court, it is waived.

                                            IV.

15
   Opening Br. at 2.
16
   Id. at 10.
17
   Even if we were to entertain Lane’s argument, we would still conclude that his
statements were voluntary. A confession is voluntary when it is “‘the product of an
essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker,’ that it was ‘the product of a
rational intellect and a free will,’ and that the appellant’s will was not ‘overborne.’”
United States v. Swint, 15 F.3d 286, 289 (3d Cir. 1994) (quoting United States ex rel.
Hayward v. Johnson, 508 F.2d 322, 326 (3d Cir. 1975)). Additionally, there is no
requirement that the investigator advise an interrogee that he is a suspect in order for his
Miranda waiver to be knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. See United States v.
Velasquez, 885 F.2d 1076, 1086 (3d Cir. 1989) (“In analyzing the totality of the
circumstances, we must look at the facts of the particular case, including the background,
experience, and conduct of the suspect.”).
                                             6
For the above stated reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

                                     7