Court Opinion

ID: 9471755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:40:25.149528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:33.804250
License: Public Domain

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Because the likelihood of success is so slim, should Schronce be allowed to obtain appellate review of the magistrate’s determination that the guns seized should not have been suppressed, I concur, rather than dissent. The error, on the basis of a review of the record, appears harmless.1 That makes unnecessary the reaching by my colleagues of the question whether Schronce “is precluded from raising the fourth amendment issue because of his failure to object to the magistrate’s report recommending that his motion to suppress be denied.” The question is a potentially serious one, on which decisions in other circuits have not been uniform.2 It should be left *95undecided until a case arises in which the person in Schronce’s position has more to gain by arguing the point, i.e., when the magistrate may very well have been in error. Otherwise, we may live to rue an unnecessary decision made when the litigant had no reason to argue especially vigorously or to brief the point exhaustively.

. The majority concludes that the fourth amendment claim in all events was, or appears to have been, meritless.

. The majority counts the decisions as five upholding their position, with one, the most recently decided, Lorin Corp. v. Goto & Corp. Ltd., 700 F.2d 1202 (8th Cir. 1983), going the other way. Cf. Johnson v. Boyd-Richardson, 650 F.2d 147, 149 (8th Cir.1981) (failure to comply with local rule requiring party to re*95spond to motion to dismiss in five days does not result in dismissal).
However, valid distinctions may be drawn with respect to those five cases. For example, in United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d 947, 950 (6th Cir.1981), the court, significantly, applied the rule only prospectively, “because rules of procedure should promote, not defeat the ends of justice.” In McCall v. Andrus, 628 F.2d 1185 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 996, 101 S.Ct. 1700, 68 L.Ed.2d 197 (1981), the failure to object did not occur, as here, before the magistrate only, but rather extended to the opening brief in the appellate court. Schronce, however, clearly objected quite vigorously to admission of the weaponry at the pretrial suppression hearing.
In Nettles v. Wainwright, 677 F.2d 404 (5th Cir.1982) (en banc) (Unit B), the Fifth Circuit suggested that for á waiver to be effective, the magistrate should use the following explicit terms: “Failure to file written objections to the proposed findings and recommendations contained in this report within ten days ... shall bar an aggrieved party from attacking the factual findings on appeal.” In the instant case, while Schronce was notified that he had to file written objections within 10 days, nothing was explicitly stated regarding a waiver in case of a failure to do so. Also, under the Nettles decision, only findings of fact, not conclusions of law, were expressly insulated from attack by a failure to observe the 10-day filing requirement. Furthermore, Nettles emphasized that failure to object at the district level constituted adequate reason to prohibit a party from initially raising objections on appeal; again, Schronce did vigorously seek in lower court proceedings to contest the refusal to suppress.
Finally, Park Motor Mart, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 616 F.2d 603 (1st Cir.1980), upheld the 10-day filing rule, but did so in the context of a civil dispute arising under a franchise agreement, as opposed to the criminal conviction at issue in Schronce’s case.