U.S.A. v. Melgar

• Citation: 227 F.3d 1038
• Decision Date: 19 September 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-3322,99-3322
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2000) United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Zoila Melgar, Defendant-Appellant
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 1038

227 F.3d 1038 (7th Cir. 2000)

United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Zoila Melgar, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 99-3322

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Argued February 23, 2000

Decided September 19, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. No. 99-CR-13-C--Barbara B. Crabb, Judge.

Before Flaum, Chief Judge, Kanne and Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judges.

Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judge.

Zoila Melgar pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and interstate transportation of counterfeit securities, conditioned on her right to challenge and now to appeal from the district court's denial of her motion to suppress evidence found inside a purse. The district court relied on the "inevitable discovery" doctrine to support its ruling, but we conclude that there is a more straightforward way to reach the same result. The purse was discovered by the police during the course of a search to which the renter of the hotel room had validly consented, and under the circumstances the police were permitted to investigate the contents of the purse as well. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court, but on different grounds.

I

On January 29, 1999, officers of the Madison, Wisconsin, police department arrested four men on charges of passing counterfeit dividend checks supposedly issued by the Johnson Controls Corporation. A search of their car turned up a receipt showing that a Rita Velasquez had rented Room 136 at a local Holiday Inn. Officers Louis Geblar and Bruce Frey, following up on that lead, drove to the hotel and went to the room in question. Joel Mejia responded to their knock on the door. He gave them permission to enter the room, where they found three other people: Celenia Mejia, Oscar Barrientos, and Jose Vasquez. Only Joel Mejia was fluent in English, and so the officers first asked him about the counterfeiting scheme, and then had him serve as a translator for the others. Geblar asked everyone present for consent to search their wallets or purses, and everyone agreed.

After this exchange, three more women arrived at the room: Rita Velasquez herself, Marcella Hernandez, and the defendant Zoila Melgar. Geblar asked Velasquez to step into the hall, where he searched her purse and jacket, found a counterfeit check, and arrested her. (Velasquez told him that the check was a joke, but he obviously found that story implausible.) On a more serious note, Velasquez also told Geblar that she saw Melgar give Hernandez a large number of checks, and that Hernandez had placed these checks in her purse.

Geblar returned to the room and next summoned Hernandez into the hall with him. There he searched her purse, but he found nothing incriminating in it. When he asked Velasquez to offer an explanation, she indicated that the checks were in a second purse Hernandez owned (a black one), that was still in the room. Geblar held up that purse and asked everyone whose purse it was, but no one claimed ownership. He then opened it and found an envelope with Hernandez's name on it that contained fake Johnson Control checks. At that point, he arrested Hernandez.

Once again, Geblar then asked Velasquez to accompany him to the hall. This time he asked for her permission to search the room. His request was a general one; he did not specifically ask her if the police could search particular closed containers within the room, nor did he ask her which of the numerous people then in the room were actually staying there. Velasquez gave her permission, which she signified both orally and by signing a scrap of paper (since lost) on which Geblar had scribbled out a consent form. At that point, the officers arrested and handcuffed everyone who had not already been arrested (including Melgar) and sent them to the station house.

After they all departed, the officers began their search of the room. Between the mattress and box springs of one of the beds, Frey found a floral purse that had no personalized markings on the outside. He opened it, and found inside an identification form that bore Melgar's photograph and the name "Diana Lopez." He also found a counterfeit Johnson Controls check payable to Diana Lopez. It is this evidence that incriminated Melgar, and it is the district court's refusal to suppress this evidence on the ground that it was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment that Melgar challenges in this appeal.

II

Melgar reasons that the evidence of the contents of the purse should have been suppressed because the police never obtained permission from anyone to search that particular closed container in Room 136. The police should have understood that the purse did not necessarily belong to Velasquez because there were several women in the room. Furthermore, she continues, the amount of luggage and other belongings scattered around made it obvious that Velasquez was not the sole occupant. Melgar concedes that Velasquez had at least apparent authority to authorize the search of the room itself, but she argues that this authority did not (either actually or apparently) extend to closed containers within the room. She also suggests that because the police had already matched up the other purses they had seen with the other women, they should have assumed that the purse underneath the mattress was Melgar's.

The district court saw enough possible merit in Melgar's arguments that it chose not to rely on consent in its ruling on the motion. Instead, it turned to an argument that had not been raised before the magistrate judge, upon whose report and recommendation the district court was relying. That argument was "inevitable discovery": had the police refrained from searching the floral purse then and there, out of concern for the lack of a warrant justifying such a search, they would simply have secured the room, obtained a warrant, and then opened the purse and obtained exactly the same damning materials they did. On appeal, the government raises another argument that it failed to make before the magistrate judge, namely, that the purse might have been subject to a valid search incident to an arrest.

Our cases, however, indicate that arguments not made before a magistrate judge are normally waived. See, e.g., Divane v. Krull Electric Co., 194 F.3d 845, 849 (7th Cir. 1999). It is also true that we have said that waiver is a flexible doctrine, see Old Ben Coal Co. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 62 F.3d 1003, 1007 (7th Cir. 1995), but there are good reasons for the rule that district courts should not consider arguments not raised initially before the magistrate judge, even though their review in cases governed by 28 U.S.C. sec. 636(b)(1) is de novo. Failure to raise arguments will often mean that facts relevant to their resolution will not have been developed; one of the parties may be prejudiced by the untimely introduction of an argument (which Melgar argues is ...