Court Opinion

ID: 9461557
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:17:18.699074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:07.491819
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent. As I see it, the majority whittles down our Campbell v. United States District Court, 501 F.2d 196 (9 Cir., 1974). I cannot agree with the concept that a district judge can accept without hearing, as in Campbell, a magistrate’s ruling (recommendation), but he must hold a hearing de novo before he can reverse. In practice, fair as the judge may be, if he exercises a discretion to hold a hearing, it will usually mean that he has almost made up his mind to reverse the magistrate. That is not good.
For the most part, the evidence before the magistrate was undisputed. As to the small amount of disputed evidence, the magistrate made no findings. As I see it, the district judge really ruled on the motion as a matter of law.
*395Here, there was an added protection to defendants. All but one of the witnesses before the magistrate later testified at the trial. If the trial judge later at the trial came to the conclusion that certain witnesses before the magistrate were unreliable, he had continuing jurisdiction over the motion to suppress. Doubtless he would have reversed his earlier ruling if he had seen any reason during the trial to do so.
Maybe Campbell is wrong. Maybe if a party requests a full hearing de novo, the court will have to grant it, thus eliminating much of the value of magistrates. It is inescapable that the Supreme Court will have to fully cover the field of magistrates’ authority and the scope of review. But, meanwhile, I cannot go along with the basic idea that if a district judge wants to approve what the magistrate did, he may stamp it “approved,” but if he doubts the wisdom of the magistrate in the particular case, then we must have a hearing de novo.