Court Opinion

ID: 9481106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:07:55.840951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:05.816511
License: Public Domain

BALDOCK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The court holds that the government’s otherwise timely filed motion for reconsideration did not toll the thirty-day statutory time period in which to take an appeal because the government sought reconsideration of a previously conceded issue. Ct.Op. at 707. This holding is plainly contrary to United States v. Dieter, 429 U.S. 6, 97 S.Ct. 18, 50 L.Ed.2d 8 (1976), in which the Supreme Court rejected the Tenth Circuit’s attempt to craft distinctions (based upon the merits of the motion for reconsideration) 1 on the general rule that the government has thirty days from the district court’s denial of a timely filed motion for reconsideration to appeal an order granting suppression under 18 U.S.C. § 3731 and Fed.R.App.P. 4(b). In Dieter, *708this court erroneously concluded that a motion for reconsideration did not toll the time in which to appeal a suppression order because the government sought reconsideration on the grounds of mistake and inadvertence rather that an alleged legal error committed by the trial court. 429 U.S. at 8, 97 S.Ct. at 19.
Here, the court is undertaking a merits inquiry on what should be a straightforward jurisdictional inquiry. The clear import of Dieter is that' we do not conduct a merits review of every motion for reconsideration to insure that it meets the salutary purposes of the rule which provides for tolling the time in which to take an appeal. The rule in Dieter and its predecessor, United States v. Healy, 376 U.S. 75, 84 S.Ct. 553, 11 L.Ed.2d 527 (1964), expressly recognized that “the consistent practice in civil and criminal cases alike has been to treat timely” motions for reconsideration “as rendering the original judgment nonfi-nal for purposes of appeal for as long as the [motion] is pending.” Dieter, 429 U.S. at 8, 97 S.Ct. at 19 (citing Healy, 376 U.S. at 78-79, 84 S.Ct. at 555-56); see also Forman v. United States, 361 U.S. 416, 425-26, 80 S.Ct. 481, 486-87, 4 L.Ed.2d 412 (1960). In the civil context, we do not scrutinize the grounds of motions for reconsideration under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e) to insure that tolling is appropriate, rather we merely apply the Supreme Court’s directive in Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U.S. 56, 59-60, 103 S.Ct. 400, 402-03, 74 L.Ed.2d 225 (1982) and Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(4) which provide that a timely filed Rule 59(e) motion tolls the time in which to take an appeal.
The court claims that rather than making a merits inquiry, it “determine[s] only that the motion is not what it purports to be: it does not ask the court to reconsider a point of law or fact that it misapprehended or overlooked.” Ct.Op. at 706 n. 3. Belying this assertion is the court’s discussion of the merits which all but decides that once an issue is conceded, it cannot be resurrected. Id. at 706. Claiming to be consistent with Dieter and Pink, the court then allows that it merely is “lookpng] beyond the caption of the motion to determine [the motion’s] substance.” Id. at 706 n. 3. No need exists in this case to look beyond the caption to determine the function of this motion: the government filed a “Motion for Reconsideration of Suppression Order.”2 By “ ‘traditional and virtually unquestioned practice,’ ” this post-suppression order suspended the time in which to file an appeal, see Dieter, 429 U.S. at 8 n. 3, 97 S.Ct. at 19 n. 3 (quoting Healy, 376 U.S. at 79, 84 S.Ct. at 556). Under Dieter, Healy and Pink, the movant only need claim that the district court’s decision was somehow incorrect and that the order should be altered. See Dieter, 429 U.S. at 8, 97 S.Ct. at 19; Healy, 376 U.S. at 80, 84 S.Ct. at 556; Pink, 317 U.S. at 266, 63 S.Ct. at 234. Only when the motion is filed in bad faith might the court’s approach be justified.3 Though the government’s motion for reconsideration appears meritless, no showing of bad faith has been made in this complex, multi-issue suppression case.
In the criminal context, “for a motion for reconsideration to extend the time for appeal, (1) the motion for reconsideration must be filed within the period during which an appeal could have been noticed from the original order, and (2) the notice of appeal must be filed within the required period following the order on the motion for reconsideration.” United States v. Lefler, 880 F.2d 233, 234 (9th Cir.1989). *709These requirements plainly are met in this case.4
No good reason exists to disregard the consistent rule in civil and criminal cases that a single motion for reconsideration of a district court’s order tolls the time for filing a notice of appeal.5 This court relies on cases involving successive motions for reconsideration which are factually inapposite. One of those cases, United States v. Cardall, 773 F.2d 1128 (10th Cir.1985), determined that the government’s second motion for reconsideration tolled the time in which to take an appeal after analyzing the grounds of that second motion. Id. at 1130. The Cardall court implicitly recognized that, under Dieter, the first motion for reconsideration tolled the time in which to file a notice of appeal. Cardall, 773 F.2d at 1130. We have recognized that a motion for rehearing or reconsideration filed within thirty days tolls the time for the government to file a notice of appeal under Fed.R.App.P. 4(b). United States v. Martinez, 681 F.2d 1248, 1252-54 (10th Cir.1982); see also United States v. Rodriguez, 892 F.2d 233, 235 (2d Cir.1989), cert. denied, _ U.S. _, 110 S.Ct. 1791, 108 L.Ed.2d 792 (1990).
Another case relied upon by the court, United States v. Marsh, 700 F.2d 1322 (10th Cir.1983), also applies to successive motions for reconsideration. In Marsh, we considered whether a motion for reconsideration of an order denying a new trial tolled the time in which to file a notice of appeal. We concluded that the motion for reconsideration did not toll because the motion for a new trial served an identical function, thus rendering the second motion for reconsideration successive: “Marsh is not entitled to two bites, so to speak. [H]e is not entitled to two motions for rehearing, and that is what, in substance is sought.” 700 F.2d at 1324. Marsh relied upon United States v. Rothseiden, 680 F.2d 96 (11th Cir.1982), which determined that a trial court’s second denial of the government’s motion for reconsideration does not toll the time in which to file a notice of appeal because “successive tolling is not allowed.” Id. at 97; see Marsh, 700 F.2d at 1325-26 (discussing Rothseiden); see also Ct.Op. at 705 (citing Rothseiden). Importantly, the court in Rothseiden, remanded to the district court for a finding of whether the government’s untimely filing was the product of excusable neglect under Fed.R.App.P. 4(b).6
According to the court, Ct.Op. at 707, the government’s motion for reconsideration did not request “the District Court to ‘reconsider [a] question decided in the case’ in order to effect an ‘alteration of the rights adjudicated.’ ” Dieter, 429 U.S. at 9, 97 S.Ct. at 20 (quoting Department of Banking v. Pink, 317 U.S. 264, 266, 63 5.Ct. 233, 234, 87 L.Ed. 254 (1942)). Not so. This is not a situation like that in Pink where “[t]he final judgment already rendered was not challenged; what was sought was merely the court’s certification that a federal question had been presented to it for decision, and this could have no different effect on the finality of the judgment than a like amendment of the court’s opinion.” Pink, 317 U.S. at 266, 63 S.Ct. at 234. Rather, the government’s motion plainly sought “alteration of the rights adjudicated” and challenged “[t]he final judg*710ment already rendered, id.; had the district court granted the motion the evidence in question would not have been suppressed.
The government claimed in its motion to have discovered new legal authority on the continuing consent issue and requested that “the evidence not [be] subject to suppression.” Rec. vol. I, doc. 39 at 1, 11. To be sure, the government had conceded this issue earlier, but the government’s right to appeal the suppression order (which contains many other appealable issues) should not be abrogated merely because the government exercised its right to file a motion for reconsideration on grounds obviously viewed with disfavor by this court. Notwithstanding the district court’s gratuitous comments about the characterization of the motion, see United States v. Ibarra, 731 F.Supp. 1037, 1039 n. 2 (D.Wyo.1990), and contrary to the district court’s claim that it lacked an evidentiary basis to proceed, id. at 1039, the district court reached the merits of the motion for reconsideration and then published its order denying same. Id. at 1039-41.
The approach taken by this court conflicts with the correct approach taken by the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Ladson, 774 F.2d 436, 438-39 n. 3 (11th Cir.1985). See Ct.Op. at 707 n. 7 (discussing Ladson). In Ladson, the defendants argued that the motion was based upon new grounds and consequently did not ask the district court to “reconsider” anything. Rejecting this argument, the court stated: “In fact, however, the motion did ask the court to reconsider something: its ultimate holding on the suppression issue.” Ladson, 774 F.2d at 438 n. 3. The same request was made of the district court in this case. The Ladson court also rejected an approach which would condition tolling on whether the issues to be appealed had been presented in the motion for reconsideration. Id. at 439 n. 3. Under this approach, tolling would have been allowed only as to the one new issue raised in the motion for reconsideration, despite the presence of other appealable issues. Id. Rejecting this alternative, the court noted such an approach was inconsistent with Dieter and stated: ‘We decline to introduce additional complications into the lives of would-be appellants.” Id.
The approach taken by this court conflicts with Dieter because it portends an evaluation of whether the claims raised in the motion for reconsideration are new or old (valid or invalid) for jurisdictional purposes. While such inquiry may be wholly appropriate in deciding the merits of the appeal, it has no place in deciding our jurisdiction when the government has exercised its right to timely file a single motion for rehearing and perfects a timely appeal. The government was not required to ask the district court “to reconsider every ap-pealable issue [or even another appealable issue], even when to do so would surely be fruitless, or lose the benefit of Dieter.” Ladson, 774 F.2d at 439 n. 3. I respectfully dissent because the court has grafted a merits inquiry onto what should be a bright-line jurisdictional inquiry. I would reach the merits of this appeal.

. In Dieter, the motion for reconsideration was termed a “petition for rehearing.” See United States v. Lefler, 880 F.2d 233, 234 n. 2 (9th Cir.1989) (noting name of pleading is not controlling, what matters is that the pleading seeks the district court to reconsider its previous order); accord United States v. Kalinowski, 890 F.2d 878, 880-81 (7th Cir.1989).

. In Dieter, the Court construed a “Motion to Set Aside Order of Dismissal” as a petition for rehearing. Dieter, 429 U.S. at 7-8, 97 S.Ct. at 18-19. In Pink, the Court construed a motion seeking to have the New York Court of Appeals "amend its remittitur by adding to it” an additional statement. 317 U.S. at 266, 63 S.Ct. at 234.

. In Healy, the Court discussed a requirement of good faith.
In this case, the record and legal issues plainly indicate the good faith of the Government in petitioning for rehearing. We would, of course, not countenance the United States’ using such petitions simply as a delaying tactic in criminal litigation; there is, however, not the slightest basis for believing that it would try to do so.
376 U.S. at 80 n. 4, 84 S.Ct. at 556 n. 4.

. The government’s motion for reconsideration was filed on December 13, 1989, twenty-eight days after the district court’s November 15, 1989 suppression order, and within the applicable thirty-day period in which the government could appeal. The government's notice of appeal was filed on January 30, 1990, twenty-seven days after the district court's January 3, 1990 order denying reconsideration and again within the applicable thirty-day period in which the government could appeal. Accordingly, the government’s appeal was timely.

. Indeed, the harsh and administratively complicated rule adopted by the court is inconsistent with our newfound charity concerning premature notices of appeal in both the civil and criminal contexts. See Lewis v. B.F. Goodrich, 850 F.2d 641, 643-46 (10th Cir.1988) (en banc); United States v. Green, 847 F.2d 622, 624-25 (10th Cir.1988) (en banc).

. Given the court’s decision, that option is not available here because seventy-six days passed between the district court's initial order and the government’s filing of a notice of appeal. See Fed.R.App.P. 4(b) (allowing district court to extend the time for filing a notice of appeal in a criminal case by 30 days upon a showing of excusable neglect).