U.S. v. Dominguez

• Decision Date: 04 March 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-2081.,02-2081.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Edward DOMINGUEZ, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

359 F.3d 839

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Edward DOMINGUEZ, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 02-2081.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: October 21, 2003.

Decided and Filed: March 4, 2004. Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206.

David J. Debold (argued and briefed), Assistant United States Attorney, Detroit, MI, for Appellant.

Richard D. Korn (argued and briefed), Detroit, MI, for Appellee.

Before: BOGGS, Chief Judge; GIBBONS, Circuit Judge; and GWIN, District Judge.^*

OPINION

BOGGS, Chief Judge.

The United States appeals from an interlocutory order in its prosecution against Edward Dominguez. The district court suppressed key evidence on the basis of issue preclusion because the same evidence had been suppressed in a previous Michigan state court proceeding against Dominguez. Because the district court misinterpreted applicable Michigan law, we REVERSE this order and remand for further proceedings consistent with our holdings.

I

This case presents the interesting issue of what preclusive force a Michigan state criminal proceeding may have upon the course of a subsequent federal criminal proceeding. The United States charges Dominguez with drug trafficking, under 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B)(ii). Its case depends largely upon evidence seized in Dominguez's automobile pursuant to a Michigan state search warrant. That warrant, in turn, was issued based upon an affidavit setting forth the report of a confidential informant that he had seen a kilogram of cocaine stored in a secret compartment of an automobile registered to Ruben Rodriguez, an alias for Dominguez.

A joint state-federal task force, the Western Wayne Interdiction Team, executed the search warrant and found cocaine in the car (although not in a secret compartment). The State of Michigan then brought state-law drug-trafficking charges against Dominguez. The state trial court suppressed all evidence obtained as a result of the search warrant, holding that the warrant had been obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court then dismissed the state charges against Dominguez without prejudice. Michigan did not appeal from that evidentiary ruling.

After the state case was dismissed, the United States brought this action based on federal-law charges similar to those brought by Michigan in the prior state court action. Dominguez again moved to suppress the evidence. The district court granted his motion because it found that the United States was collaterally estopped from litigating that issue as a privy to the state of Michigan. The United States appeals.

II

We review de novo a district court decision based on claim or issue preclusion. Heyliger v. State Univ. & Cmty. Coll. Sys. of Tenn., 126 F.3d 849, 851 (6th Cir.1997). Our analysis begins with the Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, which reads in relevant part: "[t]he records and judicial proceedings of any court of any ... State ... shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States ... as they have by law or usage in the courts of [the state] from which they are taken." Therefore, we must normally give a Michigan state court judgment "the same preclusive effect as would be given that judgment under the law of the State." Migra v. Warren City School Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81, 104 S.Ct. 892, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984). This rule applies to issues adjudicated in a state-court criminal proceeding. Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 101 S.Ct. 411, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980) (plaintiff cannot relitigate in federal civil rights action the issue of constitutionality of search, adjudicated in his prior state criminal conviction).

Of course, a Michigan state court never could sit in judgment over the prosecution of a federal crime, as 18 U.S.C § 3231 creates exclusive federal criminal jurisdiction, so there is no Michigan case law directly on point. This by itself does not prevent us from applying the Full Faith and Credit Act. The Supreme Court resolved a similar issue in Marrese v. American Acad. of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U.S. 373, 105 S.Ct. 1327, 84 L.Ed.2d 274 (1985), which directed the appellate court to look first to the state law of preclusion in order to determine whether a prior state court judgment precluded an antitrust claim within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts. Only after making that determination would the federal court consider whether the Full Faith and Credit Act should apply. Marrese, 470 U.S. at 381-82, 105 S.Ct. 1327. Because a state court could never literally apply its preclusion rules to that particular claim, the federal court applies the state's general preclusion rules. Ibid. Marrese involved claim preclusion, but it relied principally upon Kremer v. Chemical Const. Corp., 456 U.S. 461, 479 & n. 20, 102 S.Ct. 1883, 72 L.Ed.2d 262 (1982), which used the state law of issue preclusion. Ibid. This Circuit therefore understands Marrese to require a federal court to look first to the rendering state's law of issue preclusion, even when the issue in question arises in the context of a claim that is exclusively within federal jurisdiction. Kaufman v. BDO Seidman, 984 F.2d 182, 183-84 & n. 5 (6th Cir.1993).

Therefore, even though the Michigan courts could never literally confront our situation, we can and must resolve the Michigan law questions before asking whether some exception to the Full Faith and Credit Act may apply.

III

Under Michigan law, the party asserting preclusion bears the burden of proof. Detroit v. Qualls, 434 Mich. 340, 454 N.W.2d 374, 383 (1990). A court must apply issue preclusion when 1) the parties in both proceedings are the same or in privity, 2) there was a valid, final judgment in the first proceeding, 3) the same issue was actually litigated in the first proceeding, 4) that issue was necessary to the judgment, and 5) the party against whom preclusion is asserted (or its privy) had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue. Michigan v. Gates, 434 Mich. 146, 452 N.W.2d 627, 630-31 (1990). The only one of these factors in contention here is the first. The district court found that Michigan law would treat the federal government as "essentially the same party" as the State for these purposes. We disagree.

The district court, and Dominguez, rely entirely upon In re Forfeiture of $1,159,420, 194 Mich.App. 134, 486 N.W.2d 326 (1992). There, the state of Michigan sought to seize property from Robert Hawkins and his wife and minor children. In a prior federal criminal case against Hawkins for drug trafficking, a federal district court had upheld the validity of a search warrant used to get evidence against him. In the state forfeiture proceeding, the state relied on that same evidence. Although the parties were not identical on either side, the Michigan appellate court held that the defendants were collaterally estopped from contesting the validity of the search warrant. In re Forfeiture, 486 N.W.2d at 333. The privity requirement of Michigan's preclusion test was satisfied because "the federal prosecution and the prosecution in this case are essentially the same party, albeit of different governments." Ibid. The district court concludes that Michigan law equates Michigan and federal prosecutors for estoppel purposes. But this conclusion does not follow from In re Forfeiture for several reasons.

To begin with, In re Forfeiture is an appellate-level decision, so it can give us only limited guidance in emulating the Michigan Supreme Court. See King v. Order of United Commercial Travelers of America, 333 U.S. 153, 160-61, 68 S.Ct. 488, 92 L.Ed. 608 (1948) (federal court construes state law by emulating the highest court of the state). The key holding of In re Forfeiture relies upon the Michigan Supreme Court opinion in Michigan v. Gates, supra, but Gates merely found that a Michigan prosecutor acted as the same party when he represented the entire state, as when he represented a state agency. Gates, 452 N.W.2d at 630. Gates does not imply that separate governmental units, much less separate sovereigns, are privies as a matter of law.

Privity between separate sovereigns is usually found only after much factual analysis. See United States v. ITT Rayonier, 627 F.2d 996, 1003 (9th Cir.1980) (state and federal environmental agencies were in privity where they collaborated to grant and later revoke a license under joint-authority statutory scheme); compare United States v. Power Eng'g Co., 303 F.3d 1232, 1241 (10th Cir.2002) (distinguishing facts and finding no privity). Michigan law does not find privity between governmental units as a matter of law. Quite the contrary, Gates emphasizes that such questions require "multifaceted analysis and balancing of competing and vaguely defined governmental and private interests." Id. at 630 n. 12 (quoting Holland, Modernizing Res Judicata Reflections on the Parklane Doctrine, 55 Ind. L.J. 615, 618-19 (1980)). Michigan thus agrees with the modern view of collateral estoppel, that privity will be found only upon consideration of the facts of a particular case. E.g., United States v. Bonilla Romero, 836 F.2d 39, 43 (1st Cir.1987). In re Forfeiture itself is not to the contrary, although the district court apparently did not appreciate the significance of the words "in this case [the prosecutors] are essentially the same party." In re Forfeiture, 486 N.W.2d at 333 (emphasis added).

Nor are the facts of In re Forfeiture so like those before us as to demand the same outcome. Unlike the second prosecutor in that case, the United States is not an arguable stranger to the dispute now seeking to assert issue preclusion; rather, we are asked to apply issue preclusion against the newcomer based upon a finding of privity. The latter is a weightier determination. Many jurisdictions have dispensed with the privity requirement altogether as to the party asserting preclusion, Blonder-Tongue...