U.S. v. Salahuddin

• Decision Date: 19 December 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-4199.,06-4199.
• Citation: 509 F.3d 858
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rashid A. SALAHUDDIN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

509 F.3d 858

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rashid A. SALAHUDDIN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 06-4199.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 17, 2007.

Decided December 19, 2007.

Gordon P. Giampietro (argued), Michelle L. Jacobs, Office of teh Attorney General, Milwaukee, WI, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Thomas G. Wilmouth (argued), Nancy Joseph, Federal Defender Services of Eastern Wisconsin, Inc., Milwaukee, WI, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before FLAUM, RIPPLE and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

Rashid A. Salahuddin was indicted on June 7, 2005, on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). After a jury found him guilty of the charge, he was sentenced to 180 months in prison according to the armed career criminal provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 924(e).¹ He now appeals his conviction by jury and his sentence.² For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand the case for further proceedings.

I BACKGROUND

On January 13, 2003, Milwaukee County Sheriff's detectives sought Mr. Salahuddin on an outstanding escape warrant.³ Mr. Salahuddin's wife gave the detectives consent to search the couple's apartment,⁴ where they found two firearms in a bedroom closet. The next day, the detectives arrested Mr. Salahuddin after they saw him enter the apartment. When asked whether there were any firearms in the apartment, Mr. Salahuddin indicated that there were two rifles belonging to his wife in the bedroom closet.

Mr. Salahuddin was indicted on June 7, 2005, on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). On September 2, he began to plead guilty, but he changed his mind during the plea hearing when he was told that the plea meant giving up his right to attempt to suppress evidence that the Government had obtained. However, Mr. Salahuddin again changed his mind, and, on September 7, five days before his scheduled trial, he entered a plea of guilty. The district court scheduled a sentencing hearing for December 7.

Shortly before the sentencing hearing, the parties moved for a postponement in sentencing in order to permit them to investigate whether Mr. Salahuddin should be treated as an armed career criminal under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), on the ground that his juvenile conviction for armed robbery actually had involved a number of victims at different locations. The district court granted the postponement. On December 28, the court received a presentence report ("PSR") that recommended that Mr. Salahuddin be treated as an armed career criminal.

On January 6, 2006, Mr. Salahuddin's retained counsel moved for, and was granted, leave to withdraw. On January 23, his new counsel moved to withdraw the guilty plea. Counsel pointed out to the court that the guilty plea was entered because the Government had represented to prior counsel that it did not believe that Mr. Salahuddin qualified as an armed career criminal. On February 28, the district court granted the motion to withdraw the guilty plea.⁵ The district judge who had granted the motion then recused himself, and the case was transferred to the docket of another district judge sitting in the same district. Trial was scheduled for May 18.

On March 27, 2006, Mr. Salahuddin filed pretrial motions to suppress evidence and statements. These motions were untimely because the district court had set July 7, 2005 as the date for the filing of such motions. On April 5, 2006, the magistrate judge to whom these motions were assigned nevertheless ruled that the motion ought to be entertained and that an evidentiary hearing ought to be conducted. He believed that the delay in filing the motion was due in part to the "uncertainty regarding the applicability of the armed career criminal enhancement." R.39 at 3. The judge further took into consideration that Mr. Salahuddin had new counsel and that it appeared that there were significant factual issues that needed to be decided at an evidentiary hearing.

On May 3, the district judge reviewed and reversed the decision of the magistrate judge. The district judge, in a two-paragraph order, simply stated that, after a review of the briefs, he had concluded that the "good cause" requirement that permits the filing of such motions after the deadline had not been met. R.49. On August 15, 2006, Mr. Salahuddin was convicted by jury and, on November 21, 2006, was sentenced to 180 months of incarceration. On November 29, 2006, he filed a timely appeal.

II DISCUSSION

A.

A motion to suppress evidence must be filed prior to trial. Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(b)(3)(C); United States v. Mancillas, 183 F.3d 682, 703 (7th Cir.1999). A party "waives any Rule 12(b)(3) defense, objection, or request not raised by the deadline the court sets." Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(e). However, the district court may, for good cause, "grant relief from the waiver."⁶ Id.; see also United States v. Johnson, 415 F.3d 728, 730-31 (7th Cir.2005).

We review for clear error the district court's discretionary decision not to review an untimely pre-trial motion. United States v. Hamm, 786 F.2d 804, 806 (7th Cir.1986). We approach a district court's ruling on whether to permit an untimely motion to suppress with great deference to the judgment of the district court. "District judges, because of the very nature of their duties and responsibilities accompanying their position, possess great authority to manage their caseload." United States v. Coronado-Navarro, 128 F.3d 568, 572 (7th Cir.1997) (quoting United States v. Reed, 2 F.3d 1441, 1447 (7th Cir.1993)); see also Brooks v. United States, 64 F.3d 251, 256-57 (7th Cir.1995) (noting that matters of trial management are for the district judge).

A plea agreement was filed in this case on September 2, 2005. This document was the first filing in the case. On the date of that filing, Mr. Salahuddin appeared before the district court to enter a plea of guilty. That attempt failed when the district court explained to him that the entry of any plea would waive his right to raise any claim that the Government had obtained evidence through an illegal search. Nevertheless, several days later, on September 7, Mr. Salahuddin appeared again before the court and entered a guilty plea.

On the day before sentencing was to take place, the parties jointly requested a postponement in order to determine whether Mr. Salahuddin was subject to the armed career criminal provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). Several weeks later, the parties informed the court of the applicability of the provisions and that Mr. Salahuddin was considering asking that he be permitted to withdraw his guilty plea. At this point, the district court appointed new counsel for him. On January 23, several weeks later, Mr. Salahuddin, with new counsel, filed a motion to withdraw his plea. On February 28, 2006, the district court, noting "particularly the facts and circumstances surrounding the defendant's plea in this case," allowed Mr. Salahuddin to withdraw his plea and recused itself from further proceedings. It is against this background that the magistrate judge permitted the late filing of the motion to suppress.⁷

The issue of whether the defendant should have been permitted to file his motion to suppress comes to us in a considerably more complex context than the one in which such motions usually appear. On the one hand, it does not appear, and we do not understand counsel to argue, that the delay in filing the motion to suppress can be laid exclusively at the feet of the Government. Nor can we say with any assurance that the delay in filing the motion was due to counsel's "negligence, oversight, or laziness." United States v. Chavez, 902 F.2d 259, 263 (4th Cir.1990). We certainly cannot say that this motion was simply based on Mr. Salahuddin's "mistaken belief that he was free to ignore the court's order and raise the issue any time he wished." Coronado-Navarro, 128 F.3d at 572. Rather, it appears that, here, the failure to file was due in large part to a mutual misapprehension by both the Government and the defense as to the facts underlying Mr. Salahuddin's juvenile conviction and whether these factual circumstances permitted that offense to be counted as multiple prior offenses. The ambiguity—and complexity—of the situation is compounded by the fact that the district court, albeit with a different district judge presiding, had determined previously that Mr. Salahuddin ought to be permitted to withdraw his guilty plea. In determining that earlier motion, the issue of confusion over the appropriate treatment of the juvenile conviction had played a significant part. The correctness of that ruling is not before us.

The magistrate judge's initial determination that the suppression motion should be entertained was rooted in the practicalities of the situation. It seems incongruous to permit a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea and go to trial while not permitting him to litigate the admissibility of significant evidence. It is true that the considerations governing such a motion are different in every case and rarely all favor one side. With respect to this suppression motion, Mr. Salahuddin no doubt knew of the factual disputes that would require an evidentiary hearing well before the filing deadline for motions to suppress. On the other hand, although the uncertainty over the applicability of the armed career criminal provisions did not preclude his filing a suppression motion, there was definitely a practical relationship between the uncertainty about the statute and the decision not to file. That practical relationship cannot be ignored. Certainly, once Mr. Salahuddin was permitted to withdraw his plea and go to trial, it made sense to permit him to litigate the suppression motion.

Moreover, it is not clear that, under these circumstances, permitting the defendant an opportunity to test whether...