PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 09-3391
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellant
v.
MAURICE RAY DUPREE
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 08-cr-00280)
District Judge: Honorable Cynthia M. Rufe
Argued April 13, 2010
Before: FISHER, HARDIMAN and COWEN, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: August 6, 2010)
Robert A. Zauzmer (Argued)
Jose R. Arteaga
Office of United States Attorney
Suite 1250
615 Chestnut Street
Suite 1250
Philadelphia, PA 19106-0000
Attorneys for Appellant
Brett G. Sweitzer (Argued)
Robert Epstein
Kai N. Scott
Defender Association of Philadelphia
Federal Court Division
601 Walnut Street
The Curtis Center, Suite 540 West
Philadelphia, PA 19106-0000
Attorneys for Appellee
OPINION OF THE COURT
HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.
This appeal requires us to consider the question of
waiver. The issue arises in the context of a criminal case in
which Defendant Maurice Ray Dupree prevailed on a motion to
suppress evidence after the District Court determined he had
been seized without reasonable suspicion. In the District Court,
the Government argued that one issue was dispositive: whether
Dupree was actually seized when he was first grabbed by police.
Before this Court, the Government concedes that point but urges
reversal for two new—and quite different—reasons. I would
2
hold that both of these new arguments were waived. Although
Judge Fisher does not share my view regarding waiver, he
would affirm the District Court on the merits. Accordingly, we
will affirm.
I.
A.
On the evening of January 16, 2008, Philadelphia Police
Officers Brian Mabry and Steven Shippen were on patrol in a
marked police cruiser when they received a report of gunshots
near 10th and Oxford Streets. The shooter was described as a
black male, approximately five feet, eight inches tall, wearing
blue jeans and a black, hooded sweatshirt. A later report
indicated that the suspect had fled eastward on Oxford Street.
The officers drove approximately one mile to the vicinity
of the shooting. As they crossed Marshall Street, the officers
noticed a man, later identified as Dupree, slowly riding a bicycle
toward Oxford Street. Although Dupree fit the suspect’s
description, Shippen did not stop because the reports said
nothing about the suspect riding a bicycle.
Moments later, Mabry mentioned that Dupree resembled
the suspect’s description, prompting Shippen to return to
Marshall Street. As the officers approached Dupree, he
continued to ride his bicycle slowly in their direction. After
Shippen stopped the cruiser, Mabry alighted from the vehicle,
grabbed the approaching Dupree by the arm, and asked: “Can I
talk to you for a minute?” Although Mabry’s grasp stopped
3
Dupree’s movement, Dupree initially remained perched on the
bicycle.
At this point, the parties’ otherwise consistent versions of
events diverge. According to the Government, Dupree twisted
away, “slammed” his bicycle into Mabry’s legs, and fled on
foot. Dupree concedes that he broke free and fled, but denies
intentionally throwing his bicycle at Mabry. Instead, he claims
the bicycle inadvertently slid into Mabry as he dismounted.
Regardless of how Dupree extricated himself from
Mabry’s grasp, he fled on foot and the officers gave chase.
With the officers close behind, Dupree circled a home on
Marshall Street several times before pulling a loaded, .357
caliber revolver from his waistband and discarding it into a
flowerpot. Mabry stopped to recover the weapon while Shippen
pursued and eventually arrested Dupree after a brief struggle.
B.
Following his arrest, Dupree was charged with one count
of possession of a firearm by a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1). Dupree moved to suppress the gun, contending that
because Mabry lacked reasonable suspicion to grab him on
Marshall Street, the weapon was the fruit of an unlawful seizure.
The Government opposed the motion, arguing that under the
Supreme Court’s decision in California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S.
621 (1991), Dupree was not seized until after the chase, when
Shippen subdued him. Because Dupree discarded the gun
before he was seized, argued the Government, the abandoned
firearm was not subject to suppression.
4
The District Court rejected the Government’s argument.
The Court first observed that “a laying on of hands or
application of physical force to restrain movement, even when
it is ultimately unsuccessful,” constitutes a Fourth Amendment
seizure. United States v. Dupree, No. 08-280-1, 2009 WL
1475276, at *3 (E.D. Pa. May 27, 2009) (quoting United States
v. Brown, 448 F.3d 239, 245 (3d Cir. 2006)). Accordingly, the
District Court held that Dupree was seized unlawfully when
Mabry first grabbed him on Marshall Street. The District Court
then quoted United States v. Coggins, 986 F.2d 651, 653 (3d
Cir. 1993), and held: “when the abandonment of property is
precipitated by an unlawful seizure, that property also must be
excluded.” The District Court’s holding was consistent with
“the Government’s concession that if the initial stop of Dupree
is found to have been a seizure, then the gun must be suppressed
as the seizure’s illegal proceeds.” Dupree, 2009 WL 1475276,
at *6.
The Government filed a motion for reconsideration,
framing the issue for the District Court as follows: “the
suppression issue in this case turns on a single question—was .
. . Dupree seized, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment,
when . . . Mabry grabbed Dupree for a mere two seconds before
Dupree broke away and attempted to flee?” The Government
then reprised the argument it made at the suppression hearing,
viz., that under Hodari D., the Fourth Amendment was not
implicated because Dupree was not seized until well after he
dropped the firearm. The Government also argued—for the first
time and in the alternative—that Dupree committed an assault
when he intentionally “slammed” his bicycle into Mabry. Even
if Mabry’s initial grab did constitute a seizure, contended the
5
Government, Dupree’s new crime gave the officers probable
cause to arrest and thereby purged the taint of Mabry’s unlawful
seizure. The District Court denied the motion for
reconsideration.
II.
The Government now appeals the District Court’s orders
granting Dupree’s motion to suppress and denying the
Government’s motion for reconsideration. The District Court
had jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231, and we exercise
jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3731.
The Government’s appeal—in diametric opposition to the
argument it twice made before the District Court—begins with
the concession that Mabry’s initial grab of Dupree was an illegal
seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Notwithstanding the
illegal seizure, the Government urges reversal for two reasons:
(1) even if Dupree’s flight was prompted by Mabry’s unlawful
seizure, the policies underlying the exclusionary rule and the
fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine do not require suppression
of evidence voluntarily discarded by a fleeing defendant; and (2)
Dupree’s alleged assault of Mabry provided probable cause to
arrest and thereby purged the taint of the unlawful seizure.
Although the Government’s second argument was raised in its
motion for reconsideration in the District Court, its principal
argument was never raised prior to this appeal. Dupree asserts
that both arguments were waived. Alternatively, he argues that
both fail on the merits.
6
We examine the District Court’s factual findings for clear
error and review de novo the District Court’s legal conclusion
that Dupree’s firearm must be suppressed. See United States v.
Johnson, 592 F.3d 442, 447 (3d Cir. 2010).
III.
I begin with the well-established proposition that
arguments not raised in the district courts are waived on appeal.1
See Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204, 209 (1981). This
general principle applies fully to criminal cases involving
1
Case law reflects some confusion as to how to
characterize suppression arguments that were never made to a
district court. Some decisions refer to unraised arguments as
“waived,” while others deem them “forfeited.” Compare, e.g.,
United States v. Stearn, 597 F.3d 540, 551 n.11 (3d Cir. 2010)
with, e.g., United States v. Amuny, 767 F.2d 1113, 1122 (5th Cir.
1985). As the Supreme Court has explained, “[w]aiver is
different from forfeiture. Whereas forfeiture is the failure to
make the timely assertion of a right, waiver is the ‘intentional
relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.’” United
States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733 (1993) (quoting Johnson v.
Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 (1938)). Under this definition, the
failure to raise a suppression argument in a district court would
seem to constitute a “forfeiture.” In United States v. Rose,
however, we acknowledged Olano’s teachings but nonetheless
characterized suppression arguments not raised below as
“waived” in light of Congress’s post-Olano revisions to Rule 12
of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which retained the
waiver language. 538 F.3d 175, 183-84 (3d Cir. 2008).
7
motions to suppress. See id.; United States v. Stearn, 597 F.3d
540, 551 n.11 (3d Cir. 2010). Thus, when a party seeks reversal
of a suppression ruling on appeal, any arguments not raised in
the district court are waived absent a showing of good cause,
and plain error review does not apply.2 United States v. Rose,
538 F.3d 175, 184 (3d Cir. 2008); see also Fed. R. Crim. P.
12(e). Just as a defendant may not introduce new “theories of
suppression” on appeal that were never argued below, United
States v. Lockett, 406 F.3d 207, 212 (3d Cir. 2005), the
Government is “subject to the ordinary rule that an argument not
raised in the district court is waived on appeal[,]” Stearn, 597
F.3d at 551 n.11 (citing Steagald, 415 U.S. at 209).
This raise-or-waive rule is essential to the proper
functioning of our adversary system because even the most
learned judges are not clairvoyant. See United States v. Nee,
261 F.3d 79, 86 (1st Cir. 2001). Thus, we do not require district
judges to anticipate and join arguments that are never raised by
the parties. See United States v. Griffiths, 47 F.3d 74, 77 (2d
Cir. 1995). Instead courts rely on the litigants not only to cite
relevant precedents, but also to frame the issues for decision.
See id. (“The government was required to offer some argument
or development of its theory. It failed to do so, and has therefore
waived the issue.”).
2
Of course, a different scenario is presented when a party
asks us to affirm a district court’s suppression ruling because we
may affirm for any reason supported by the record. See United
States v. Agnew, 407 F.3d 193, 196 (3d Cir. 2005).
8
Moreover, “[a] fleeting reference or vague allusion to an
issue will not suffice to preserve it for appeal[.]” In re Ins.
Brokerage Antitrust Litig., 579 F.3d 241, 262 (3d Cir. 2009).
Rather, a party “must unequivocally put its position before the
trial court at a point and in a manner that permits the court to
consider its merits.” Shell Petroleum, Inc. v. United States, 182
F.3d 212, 218 (3d Cir. 1999). Mindful of the important
purposes that animate our waiver jurisprudence, I turn now to
Dupree’s contention that the Government waived the two
arguments it presses on appeal.
A.
The Government’s principal argument is that the
exclusionary rule and the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine do
not automatically apply following a Fourth Amendment
violation. According to the Government, application of the
exclusionary rule requires us to compare the substantial social
costs that attend the suppression of probative physical evidence
against the benefits in deterring Fourth Amendment violations.
Arguing that suppression of Dupree’s weapon would offer only
minimal deterrence while imposing considerable social costs,
the Government urges us to find the exclusionary rule
inapplicable where, as here, a defendant who has been illegally
seized subsequently breaks free from police and voluntarily
discards evidence while fleeing.
The Government’s reasoning relies heavily on recent
Supreme Court cases that, when read together, arguably suggest
as much. See, e.g., Herring v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695,
700-03 (2009); Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 591-93
9
(2006). As the Government argues, Herring cautions us to
apply the exclusionary rule only when its potential for deterring
future police misconduct outweighs the social costs incurred by
suppressing the evidence. See 129 S. Ct. at 700-03. Whether
the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine requires suppression in
a given case can turn on similar variables. See Hudson, 547
U.S. at 593.
Irrespective of the merits of the Government’s argument,
it suffers from a fatal defect: it was never presented to the
District Court. It neither appears in the Government’s briefs,
nor was raised at the suppression hearing. Indeed, when initially
opposing Dupree’s suppression motion in the District Court, the
Government argued only that suppression was not required
because Mabry’s initial grab of Dupree did not constitute an
unlawful seizure. Whether for strategic reasons or through
inadvertence, the Government did not argue that even if
Mabry’s grab of Dupree was an unlawful seizure, the fruit-of-
the-poisonous-tree doctrine did not apply.
At oral argument, the Government attempted to finesse
its failure to raise this argument in the District Court by
conceding that its language “could have been more precise.”
The Government also conceded that although cases such as
Herring and Hudson are central to the legal argument it now
presses on appeal, neither case was cited to the District Court.
This omission is telling.
To understand the argument the Government actually
made to the District Court, I review what counsel for the
Government said at the suppression hearing. There, the
10
Government argued exclusively that suppression was not
required because Mabry’s grab of Dupree did not constitute a
seizure. In the words of the prosecutor:
But, now a question that we have before us . . . is
whether or not the defendant was seized [by
Mabry] on Marshall Street. If we can say that at
this point in time the defendant was arrested, the
case ends at that point in time . . . The problem
that we have here is that the arrest did not occur
on Marshall Street, but occurred [later].
...
If [Dupree] is grabbed and he flees you don’t
have, whatever term you want to use, custody,
seizure, or arrest, you don’t have it. If you don’t
have it, then you don’t have the suppression issue
that . . . is before us . . . .
Because the officers had probable cause to arrest Dupree after
seeing him discard the gun during the chase, argued the
Government, Shippen’s subsequent tackle and arrest of Dupree
was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. At no point,
however, did the Government argue that the exclusionary rule
should not apply even if Dupree had been seized by Mabry
because the costs of suppression would outweigh any deterrent
benefit.3
3
Notably, the District Court’s memorandum opinion does
not mention the policy-based argument the Government presses
11
Nor did the Government raise its new argument when
seeking reconsideration in the District Court. Instead, the
Government’s motion for reconsideration essentially restated its
unsuccessful argument that Dupree was not seized until he was
tackled and arrested by Shippen. As the Government’s motion
for reconsideration straightforwardly asserted: “the suppression
issue in this case turns on a single question—was . . . Dupree
seized, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, when . .
. Mabry grabbed Dupree for a mere two seconds before Dupree
broke away and attempted to flee?” Though the Government
now concedes that Dupree was seized when Mabry initially
grabbed him, it no longer thinks that the “suppression issue in
this case turns on a single question”—or at least not the same
“single question” that it presented to the District Court. Having
framed the legal issue so squarely below, the Government may
not now paint a different picture on appeal.4
The Government responds to Dupree’s waiver argument
by noting that it cited Hodari D. repeatedly in the District Court.
But the Government ignores the fact that it cited Hodari D. only
on appeal. See United States v. Dupree, No. 08-280-1, 2009
WL 1475276 (E.D. Pa. May 27, 2009).
4
The Government’s concession on appeal that Mabry’s
grab was a seizure is understandable in light of the Supreme
Court’s statement in Hodari D. that the “laying on of hands or
application of physical force to restrain movement, even when
it is ultimately unsuccessful” constitutes a seizure. 499 U.S.
621, 626 (1991); see also United States v. Brown, 448 F.3d 239,
245 (3d Cir. 2006).
12
to support its argument that Dupree was not seized when
grabbed by Mabry. Now, by contrast, the Government admits
that Dupree was seized and instead relies on Hodari D. to argue
that the exclusionary rule should not apply.5
5
The language from Hodari D. on which the Government
now relies provides:
To say that an arrest is effected by the slightest
application of physical force, despite the
arrestee’s escape, is not to say that for Fourth
Amendment purposes there is a continuing arrest
during the period of fugitivity. If, for example,
[the police officer] had laid his hands upon
Hodari to arrest him, but Hodari had broken away
and had then cast away the cocaine, it would
hardly be realistic to say that that disclosure had
been made during the course of an arrest.
Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 625. Based on this passage, our
dissenting colleague would hold that “evidence discarded by a
fleeing defendant after an unlawful seizure does not make that
evidence per se inadmissible” because the evidence is not
recovered during the course of the illegal arrest.
Accepting the dicta from Hodari D. at face value,
additional analysis is still required to determine whether the
weapon discarded by Dupree must be suppressed. The fruit-of-
the-poisonous-tree doctrine applies to evidence recovered both
during and as a result of a Fourth Amendment violation. See
Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 536-37 (1988). Thus,
13
It is elementary that Fourth Amendment analysis
typically proceeds in three stages. First, we ask whether a
Fourth Amendment event, such as a search or a seizure, has
occurred. See United States v. Smith, 575 F.3d 308, 312-13 (3d
Cir. 2009). Next, we consider whether that search or seizure
was reasonable. Id. If it was not, we then determine whether
the circumstances warrant suppression of the evidence. See
Herring, 129 S. Ct. at 700.
Before the District Court, the Government cited Hodari
D. only at the first stage, when it argued that no seizure had
occurred before Dupree discarded the firearm. On appeal, the
Government now cites Hodari D. at the final stage, arguing that
the exclusionary rule should not apply despite Mabry’s
unreasonable seizure of Dupree. The Government thus cited
Hodari D. in the District Court at a wholly different stage of the
Fourth Amendment analysis.
As the Government recognized at oral argument, simply
citing a case in the District Court is not sufficient to raise all
arguments that might flow from it. See Nee, 261 F.3d at 86. To
assuming that the seizure of Dupree terminated once he fled, we
would still be required to determine whether the fruit-of-the-
poisonous-tree doctrine requires suppression in this case. Judge
Cowen would hold that it does not, based on the Government’s
argument that the social costs of suppression in such a scenario
would outweigh the exclusionary rule’s deterrent effect on
future Fourth Amendment violations. I express no view on the
merits of this argument because it was not raised in the District
Court.
14
preserve the argument that it now makes on appeal, the
Government had to do more than broadly reference Hodari D.6
Instead, it had to give the District Court the opportunity to
consider the argument it now makes, i.e., whether the policies
underlying the exclusionary rule demonstrate that it should
apply where, as here, an illegally seized defendant breaks free
6
It is unsurprising that the Government’s mere citation
to Hodari D. below did not prompt the District Court to consider
sua sponte the argument the Government makes on appeal. The
holding of Hodari D. involved whether the officers’ actions
constituted a seizure in the first instance. See Hodari D., 499
U.S. at 626 (“The narrow question before us is whether, with
respect to a show of authority . . . , a seizure occurs even though
the subject does not yield.”). Because the Supreme Court found
that no seizure had occurred ab initio, it had no occasion to
consider whether either the seizure was reasonable or whether
the exclusionary rule should apply. Thus, Hodari D. was
directly relevant to the argument that the Government made to
the District Court—i.e., that suppression was unwarranted
because Mabry had not seized Dupree. But Hodari D.’s holding
provides scant support for the Government’s broader, policy-
based argument that the exclusionary rule does not apply
notwithstanding Mabry’s illegal seizure. Though precedents
such as Herring and Hudson clearly bear on that argument, the
Government candidly admitted at oral argument that it cited
neither of those cases to the District Court. Thus, despite Judge
Cowen’s suggestion to the contrary, merely citing Hodari D.
was insufficient to put the District Court on notice of the novel
legal argument the Government has raised on appeal.
15
and discards evidence while fleeing. Because it did not do so,
the Government failed to preserve its argument for appeal.7
7
Contrary to Judge Fisher’s suggestion, this waiver
holding is not predicated on a finding that “the government has
forfeited its right to rely on Hodari D. by virtue of its concession
on appeal that Dupree, unlike Hodari, was seized at the outset of
his encounter with the police.” Concurring Op. at 5. Rather, the
Government forfeited its right to make a fruit-of-the-poisonous-
tree argument on appeal because it never raised that argument
below.
To illustrate this point, an analogy is helpful. Assume
that this case instead involved statements allegedly obtained in
violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). The rule
of Miranda applies if two requirements are met: a defendant
must be (1) “in custody” and (2) subject to “interrogation” by
the Government. Id. at 444; see also United States v. Leese, 176
F.3d 740, 743 (3d Cir. 1999). If the Government were to cite
Miranda in the District Court solely for the proposition that
Dupree was not “in custody” while eschewing any argument that
he was not subject to an “interrogation,” one could not
persuasively contend that the Government preserved the latter
argument for appeal simply by citing Miranda in reference to
the former. And like Miranda, the Fourth Amendment analysis
has discrete components. Accordingly, I respectfully disagree
with Judge Fisher’s suggestion that “this case is not one in
which the government is . . . pursuing a legal theory it wholly
failed to raise below.” Concurring Op. at 5. That is precisely
what the Government seeks to do here when it cites Hodari D.
on appeal to argue that the exclusionary rule should not apply
16
In sum, the Government now presents a novel and
interesting legal argument. Regardless of the merits of this
argument, however, it was never raised in the District Court.
Accordingly, it was waived. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(e)
(providing that “a party waives any [motion to suppress]
defense, objection, or request not raised by the deadline” set by
the district court). In Rose, we held that waiver of a suppression
argument may be excused only for good cause shown. 538 F.3d
at 184-85. Because the Government has made no attempt to
show good cause, I would hold that it waived its policy
argument that the District Court should not have applied the
exclusionary rule to suppress Dupree’s firearm.
B.
The Government argues in the alternative that the firearm
need not be suppressed because Dupree’s “intervening and
volitional act of throwing his bicycle at Mabry after he was
seized created probable cause to arrest” Dupree for assault. The
Government does not argue that it presented this independent-
crime theory to the District Court when it initially opposed
Dupree’s suppression motion. Instead, the Government notes
that it raised this argument only in its motion for
reconsideration.
Dupree responds by citing United States v. Thompson,
where the Eleventh Circuit held that a suppression argument
made by the Government for the first time in a motion for
for policy reasons after citing the case below only to argue that
Dupree was not seized.
17
reconsideration was waived because the Government provided
no justification for its failure to raise the argument in a timely
fashion. 710 F.2d 1500, 1504 (11th Cir. 1983). As discussed
previously, we recognized a similar rule in Rose, holding that
under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(e), “a party waives
any [motion to suppress] defense, objection, or request not
raised by the deadline” set by the district court absent a showing
of good cause. 538 F.3d at 184-85.
Here, the Government waived its independent-crime
argument by failing to raise it before the District Court ruled on
Dupree’s motion to suppress—i.e., by the “deadline” set by Rule
12(e). There is no indication that the Government made any
attempt to demonstrate good cause for its failure to raise this
argument when it sought reconsideration in the District Court.
Nor has the Government argued good cause on appeal. Thus, to
the extent that the Government appeals the District Court’s order
granting Dupree’s motion to suppress, this independent-crime
argument was waived, and the Government has given us no
basis to excuse its waiver.
The Government has also appealed the District Court’s
order denying its motion for reconsideration, however.
Although the Government failed to raise its independent-crime
theory when initially opposing suppression, it preserved the
argument in the context of its appeal from the District Court’s
separate order denying its motion for reconsideration.
We review the denial of a motion for reconsideration for
abuse of discretion. See Max’s Seafood Café ex rel. Lou-Ann,
Inc. v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 673 (3d Cir. 1999). The
18
purpose of such a motion is to correct a clear error of law or to
prevent a manifest injustice in the District Court’s original
ruling. Id. at 677; see also Harsco Corp. v. Zlotnicki, 779 F.2d
906, 909 (3d Cir. 1985). Such motions “are granted for
‘compelling reasons,’ such as a change in the law which reveals
that an earlier ruling was erroneous, not for addressing
arguments that a party should have raised earlier.” Solis v.
Current Dev. Corp., 557 F.3d 772, 780 (7th Cir. 2009) (internal
citations omitted). Though “[m]otions to reconsider empower
the court to change course when a mistake has been made, they
do not empower litigants . . . to raise their arguments, piece by
piece.” Id.
As discussed herein, the District Court granted Dupree’s
motion to suppress after it found that he was seized without
reasonable suspicion when Officer Mabry grabbed him.
Nothing about the Government’s newly raised independent-
crime argument makes this initial ruling by the District Court
clearly erroneous as a matter of law. Nor has the Government
cited any new evidence. Rather, the District Court’s decision to
suppress Dupree’s weapon was legally correct in light of the
facts, law, and arguments raised by the parties at the time of the
original motion to suppress. That the Government belatedly
articulated an alternative basis for admitting the evidence does
not impugn the District Court’s original ruling. Accordingly,
the District Court’s denial of the Government’s motion for
reconsideration was not an abuse of discretion.
IV.
19
In this appeal, the Government proffers two alternative
bases for reversing the District Court’s suppression of Dupree’s
firearm. The Government’s principal argument reflects a
thoughtful consideration of the Supreme Court’s more recent
exclusionary rule jurisprudence. We undoubtedly will have
occasion to consider that argument in the future, but not in a
case, such as this one, where it was never presented to the
District Court. For the reasons stated herein and in Judge
Fisher’s concurring opinion, we will affirm the District Court’s
orders granting Dupree’s motion to suppress and denying the
Government’s motion for reconsideration.
20
United States v. Dupree, No. 09-3391
COWEN, Circuit Judge, dissenting
One of my colleagues has concluded that the
Government waived the argument that it seeks to raise on
appeal and has affirmed the District Court’s order suppressing
the firearm on that ground. My other colleague has concluded
that, while the Government has not waived its argument on
appeal, the argument lacks merit, and has joined in the decision
to affirm. I break from my colleagues on both grounds,
concluding that the Government did not waive its argument and
that the Government should prevail on appeal. I would reverse
the District Court.
I. BACKGROUND
The facts of this case are fairly straightforward as set
forth in Judge Hardiman’s opinion. The issues argued by the
parties before the District Court and on appeal; however, merit
additional elaboration. In the District Court, Dupree moved to
suppress evidence of the firearm, contending that the officers
lacked reasonable suspicion to stop him, that he was seized
within the Fourth Amendment when Officer Mabry grabbed his
arm, and that the firearm must be suppressed as fruit of the
poisonous tree. The Government argued that the police had
reasonable suspicion to stop Dupree and that the seizure did not
occur until the police arrested him after he fled. The
Government prominently discussed Hodari D. in its opposition
papers and during oral argument.
The District Court conducted a suppression hearing and
subsequently granted Dupree’s motion. It held that Officer
Mabry seized Dupree without reasonable suspicion when he
grabbed Dupree’s arm, that the “seizure directly precipitated
[Dupree’s] flight and abandonment of the firearm,” and that the
firearm was fruit of the poisonous tree. The Government moved
for reconsideration, arguing in depth that the District Court
should deny Dupree’s motion under the Supreme Court’s
instruction in Hodari D. The Government excerpted several
passages from Hodari D. to support its position. The District
Court denied the Government’s motion concluding that the court
did not commit an error of law when it found that Dupree was
seized when Officer Mabry grabbed Dupree’s arm, and that the
gun was the fruit of that seizure (even though Dupree freed
himself of that seizure and was no longer in custody when he
discarded the pistol).
On appeal, the Government concedes that a seizure
occurred, however momentarily, when Officer Mabry grabbed
Dupree’s arm and that Officer Mabry lacked reasonable
suspicion to seize Dupree. See Gov’t Br. at 14 (“The
government acknowledges that at the moment of Officer
Mabry’s action in grabbing Dupree and stopping his movement
on a bicycle, the police had an insufficient basis to stop and frisk
Dupree, and that any seizure of his person or possessions at that
time would be unlawful.”); Gov’t Br. at 31 (“[I]t is clear that
Officer Mabry’s two-second grasp of Dupree, although a seizure
for Fourth Amendment purposes, does not taint the admissibility
of the handgun recovered during Dupree’s flight.”). Thus, the
District Court’s determination that an unlawful seizure occurred
when Officer Mabry grabbed Dupree’s arm is not at issue on
appeal.
The Government’s position is that suppression is not
merited when evidence is abandoned by a suspect during flight
if the suspect fled after a momentary, unlawful physical seizure
because the Fourth Amendment does not protect the actions of
suspects under these circumstances. The Government relies on
the Supreme Court’s decision in Hodari D. to support its
2
position. Dupree counters that suppression is required under
this Court’s Fourth Amendment precedent.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Waiver
Before I address the merits of the Government’s
argument, it is necessary to address a procedural issue: whether
the Government waived or forfeited the argument that it seeks
to raise on appeal by its litigation positions below. Judge Fisher
has concluded, and I agree, that the Government did not waive
or forfeit its argument. Contrary to Judge Hardiman’s
conclusion, the Government’s argument is not new. The
Government discussed the primary case upon which it relies,
Hodari D., in its opposition to Dupree’s motion to suppress and
in its amended opposition. Those briefs focused on the
Government’s then primary argument—that a seizure did not
occur until the police arrested Dupree—however, the
Government’s earlier position does not preclude consideration
of the argument it now makes as the Government relied on
Hodari D quite broadly. A finding that the Government waived
its argument is improper particularly when one reviews the
Government’s motion for reconsideration of suppression, in
which the Government briefed suppression standards
extensively and excerpted the passages from Hodari D that are
at issue on appeal. Notably, Dupree did not raise any
preservation or waiver argument in his opposition to
reconsideration; rather, Dupree addressed the merits of the
Government’s position. Further, the District Court did not
foreclose consideration of those passages or make any findings
of waiver with respect to the Hodari D. argument when it ruled
on the Government’s reconsideration motion.
3
The Government made several arguments in the
proceedings before the District Court and cited and excerpted
numerous cases, including the portion of Hodari D. at issue on
appeal. This case does not present a situation in which a judge
was expected to anticipate an argument that was never raised.
The Supreme Court’s instruction in Hodari D. was adequately
and prominently before the District Court such that the
Government did not waive or fail to preserve its primary
argument on appeal.
B. Suppression
The issue before this Court, as I understand it, is whether
suppression is required when a suspect flees from an officer’s
momentary, unlawful physical seizure and the suspect discards
evidence during flight that is later recovered. As I will set forth
more clearly below, the Supreme Court’s instruction in Hodari
D. compels a reversal of the District Court’s order suppressing
the firearm.1 Therefore, I will dissent from my colleagues.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches
and seizures . . . .” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “Generally, for a
1
Unlike Judge Fisher, I am not troubled by the
Government’s reliance on a passage from Hodari D. that is
dicta. The Supreme Court grants certiorari in fewer than 85
cases annually, and thus, provides precedent on very few issues.
Accordingly, the Court’s dicta is highly persuasive and should
be treated as binding unless there are indications to the contrary,
which in this case, there are none. As I have set forth in my
dissent, the Court spoke on the precise factual setting presented
by this case and instructed that suppression would not be
appropriate. Under these circumstances, I do not believe that
adhering to the Supreme Court’s instruction is optional.
4
seizure to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, it must
be effectuated with a warrant based on probable cause.” United
States v. Robertson, 305 F.3d 164, 167 (3d Cir. 2002).
However, under the exception to the warrant requirement
established in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), “an officer may,
consistent with the Fourth Amendment, conduct a brief,
investigatory stop when the officer has a reasonable, articulable
suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow,
528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000). “Any evidence obtained pursuant to
an investigatory stop (also known as a ‘Terry stop’ or a ‘stop
and frisk’) that does not meet this exception must be suppressed
as ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’” United States v. Brown, 448
F.3d 239, 244 (3d Cir. 2006) (citing Wong Sun v. United States,
371 U.S. 471, 487-88, 83 S. Ct. 407, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441 (1963);
United States v. Coggins, 986 F.2d 651, 653 (3d Cir. 1993)).
In Hodari D., the Supreme Court explained that a seizure
occurs within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when there
is either the “laying on of hands or application of physical force
to restrain movement, even when it is ultimately unsuccessful,”
or “submission to the assertion of authority.” Hodari D., 499
U.S. at 626 (emphasis omitted). In elaborating on physical
seizures, the Court clarified that:
To say that an arrest is effected by the slightest application of
physical force, despite the arrestee’s escape, is not to say that for
Fourth Amendment purposes there is a continuing arrest during
the period of fugitivity. If, for example, [the law enforcement
officer] had laid his hands upon Hodari to arrest him, but Hodari
had broken away and had then cast away the cocaine, it would
hardly be realistic to say that that disclosure had been made
during the course of an arrest.
Id. at 625 (emphasis in original).
5
The Court further explained that with respect to the
principles underlying the Court’s Fourth Amendment precedent:
We do not think it desirable, even as a policy matter, to stretch
the Fourth Amendment beyond its words and beyond the
meaning of arrest . . . . Street pursuits always place the public
at some risk, and compliance with police orders to stop should
therefore be encouraged. Only a few of those orders, we must
presume, will be without adequate basis, and since the addressee
has no ready means of identifying the deficient ones it almost
invariably is the responsible course to comply. Unlawful orders
will not be deterred, moreover, by sanctioning through the
exclusionary rule those of them that are not obeyed. Since
policemen do not command “Stop!” expecting to be ignored, or
give chase hoping to be outrun, it fully suffices to apply the
deterrent to their genuine, successful seizures.
Id. at 627 (emphasis in original).
In Hodari D., police officers on patrol in a police vehicle
in a high crime area turned down a street where several
teenagers were huddled together. Id. at 623. The teenagers fled
as soon as they noticed the officers’ car. Hodari was one of
those individuals and during flight he discarded what was later
determined to be a moderate quantity of crack cocaine. Id. In
addressing Hodari’s argument for suppression, the Supreme
Court concluded that Hodari fled prior to any submission of
authority, and therefore, no seizure had occurred prior to his
flight. Under these circumstances, the Fourth Amendment is not
implicated, and any evidence discarded during flight is
admissible. Id. at 629 (“In sum, assuming that Pertoso’s pursuit
in the present case constituted a ‘show of authority’ enjoining
Hodari to halt, since Hodari did not comply with that injunction
he was not seized until he was tackled. The cocaine abandoned
while he was running was in this case not the fruit of a seizure,
6
and his motion to exclude evidence of it was properly denied.”).
Since Hodari D., courts have routinely held that evidence
abandoned during flight from an earlier encounter with the
police that did not constitute a seizure is admissible. See United
States v. Smith, 575 F.3d 308, 312-16 (3d Cir. 2009) (reversing
suppression of a firearm obtained from an individual who
discarded it during flight from law enforcement officers as the
suspect fled before a seizure had occurred and therefore, had not
triggered Fourth Amendment protections); United States v.
Martin, 399 F.3d 750, 752-53 (6th Cir. 2005) (affirming denial
of suppression under Hodari D. as the defendant “had not been
seized when he discarded his revolver”); United States v.
Hernandez, 27 F.3d 1403, 1407 (9th Cir. 1994) (“We hold that
Hernandez was not seized because he never submitted to
authority, nor was he physically subdued. Consequently, any
evidence obtained during [the law enforcement officers’]
encounter with Hernandez is admissible, including the discarded
gun.”).
Additionally, courts have addressed whether evidence
discarded by a defendant during flight from an encounter with
the police that constituted an unlawful show-of-authority seizure
is admissible. Most courts have suppressed such evidence as
fruit of the poisonous tree. See, e.g., Brown, 448 F.3d at 252
(concluding that Brown was seized prior to his “aborted escape
attempt” and evidence obtained after this seizure was
inadmissible). However, at least one circuit has held otherwise.
See United States v. Garcia, 516 F.2d 318, 319-20 (9th Cir.
1975) (holding that evidence discarded when a defendant fled
from an unlawful show-of-authority seizure is admissible as the
law enforcement officers did not exploit the unlawful stop and
the defendant’s flight was not tainted by the unlawful stop). The
rationale for this holding is relevant to our analysis regarding the
7
instant appeal. In Garcia, the court distinguished between two
scenarios, explaining that:
If there were evidence in the record that the checkpoint at San
Clemente was designed to lure suspected criminals into flight
from law enforcement officers, we might reach a different
conclusion. Where a suspect’s act is the intended result of illegal
police conduct, or ensuing police action, it is likely to prove
tainted. But where the illegal conduct of the police is only a
necessary condition leading up to the suspect’s act, no taint
attaches to his conduct; a “but-for” connection alone is
insufficient. In this case, the illegal stop was no more than part
of a series of facts leading up to the subsequent flight. By
ordering Martinez-Lopez to stop, the officer could hardly have
intended him to flee.
Id. (internal citations omitted). Thus, contrary to Dupree’s
contention, evidence discarded by a fleeing defendant after an
unlawful seizure does not make that evidence per se
inadmissible. Id. (holding that the discarded evidence was not
tainted by the earlier unlawful stop); cf. United States v. Dawdy,
46 F.3d 1427, 1431 (8th Cir. 1995) (“[W]e now hold that a
defendant’s response to even an invalid arrest or Terry stop may
constitute independent grounds for arrest.”).
The parties did not provide any authority from this Court
or any of our sister circuits that addresses the precise issue in
this appeal; namely, whether suppression is required when
evidence is discarded by a defendant during flight after a
momentary physical seizure occurs that is later deemed to be an
unlawful seizure. In contrast to the absence of authority from
the circuits, the Supreme Court gave the answer in Hodari D.
when it hypothesized that if the law enforcement officer “had
8
laid his hands upon Hodari to arrest him, but Hodari had broken
away and had then cast away the cocaine, it would hardly be
realistic to say that that disclosure had been made during the
course of an arrest.” Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 625. As the Court
explained, there is no “continuing arrest” during a period of
fugitivity. Id. It further elaborated that “[u]nlawful orders will
not be deterred, moreover, by sanctioning through the
exclusionary rule those of them that are not obeyed.” Id. at 627.
To hold as Dupree suggests would create unacceptable
incentives. It would encourage suspects to disobey orders from
law enforcement officers, thereby placing the public at risk,
while at the same time allowing suspects to retain Fourth
Amendment protections. Cf. Hernandez, 27 F.3d at 1407
(expressing concern for any application of the exclusionary rule
that would permit suspects to flee from law enforcement officers
yet still qualify for the protections of the Fourth Amendment).
Moreover, a decision to deny suppression under these
circumstances is reinforced by the Supreme Court’s recent
pronouncements regarding the exclusionary rule:
[T]he exclusionary rule is not an individual right and applies
only where it result[s] in appreciable deterrence. We have
repeatedly rejected the argument that exclusion is a necessary
consequence of a Fourth Amendment violation. Instead we
have focused on the efficacy of the rule in deterring Fourth
Amendment violations in the future.
Herring v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695, 700 (2009) (internal
citations and quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has
suggested that deterrence would be minimal under these
circumstances thereby negating any value to exclusion.
9
III. CONCLUSION
Contrary to my colleagues, I have concluded that the
Government did not waive its argument on appeal and that its
argument should prevail. I would reverse the District Court’s
order suppressing the firearm.
10
FISHER, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and concurring in the
judgment.
Judge Hardiman has persuasively explained why the
government is foreclosed from pursuing most of its arguments
on appeal, and I join his opinion in most respects. I write
separately to clarify why I would not enforce the waiver
doctrine against the government with respect to its reliance on
California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621 (1991), but would
nevertheless affirm the District Court’s suppression order both
because the government has failed to satisfy its burden of proof
and because the government’s reliance on Hodari D. is
misplaced.
The basic facts of this case are straightforward enough.
Officers Mabry and Shippen were on the lookout for a suspect
in a shooting, spotted Dupree in the vicinity, and thought he
matched the suspect’s description. Officer Mabry approached
Dupree and grabbed him. Dupree almost immediately broke
free, gave chase, and moments later threw a gun into a flowerpot
while still on the run. Although the government persisted in
telling the District Court otherwise, it now wisely concedes that
Officer Mabry’s act of grabbing Dupree, no matter how short in
duration, effected a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth
Amendment. See United States v. Brown, 448 F.3d 239, 245 (3d
Cir. 2006) (seizure may occur with “a laying on of hands or
application of physical force to restrain movement, even when
it is ultimately unsuccessful” (quoting Hodari D., 499 U.S. at
626)) (quotation marks omitted); see also id. (“seizure is
effected by even ‘the slightest application of physical force’”
(quoting Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 625-26)). And as the
government likewise acknowledges, because that seizure was
unsupported by reasonable suspicion, much less probable cause,
it was unlawful. See Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123-24
(2000); see also, e.g., Brown, 448 F.3d at 246-52; United States
v. Ubiles, 224 F.3d 213 (3d Cir. 2000); United States v. Baker,
221 F.3d 438 (3d Cir. 2000).
It is axiomatic that evidence obtained as a result of a
Fourth Amendment violation ordinarily must be suppressed as
“fruit of the poisonous tree.” See Wong Sun v. United States,
371 U.S. 471, 487-88 (1963); see also United States v. Johnson,
592 F.3d 442, 447 (3d Cir. 2010); United States v. Mosley, 454
F.3d 249, 254 (3d Cir. 2006). That axiom is not absolute;
although evidence obtained as a result of a Fourth Amendment
violation may be subject to the exclusionary rule as a general
matter, the Supreme Court has carved out several exceptions to
that rule. See United States v. Pelullo, 173 F.3d 131, 136 (3d
Cir. 1999); see also Mosley, 454 F.3d at 269; United States v.
Goodrich, 450 F.3d 552, 557 (3d Cir. 2006). These exceptions
reflect the Court’s disavowal of a wooden test for determining
whether there exists a causal connection between unlawful
police conduct and the recovery of incriminating evidence. See,
e.g., Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603-04 (1975); Nardone v.
United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341 (1939). Instead, the Court has
taught that “the scope of the exclusionary rule is determined by
‘whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the
evidence to which objection is made has been come at by
exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently
distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.’” United
States v. Burton, 288 F.3d 91, 99 (3d Cir. 2002) (quoting Wong
Sun, 371 U.S. at 488) (ellipsis omitted); see also United States
v. Perez, 280 F.3d 318, 338 (3d Cir. 2002) (“[E]vidence is not
to be excluded if the connection between the illegal police
2
conduct and the discovery and seizure of the evidence is so
attenuated as to dissipate the taint.” (quoting Segura v. United
States, 468 U.S. 796, 797 (1984)) (quotation marks omitted));
Pelullo, 173 F.3d at 136. To determine whether the taint of the
initial illegality has been purged, the Supreme Court has
instructed us to focus on three non-dispositive factors: (1) the
temporal proximity between the unlawful conduct and the
recovery of the evidence; (2) “the presence of intervening
circumstances”; and (3) “the purpose and flagrancy” of the
unlawfulness. Brown, 422 U.S. at 603-04; see Burton, 288 F.3d
at 99-100; see also, e.g., United States v. Butts, 704 F.2d 701,
704-05 (3d Cir. 1983). The government shoulders the burden of
establishing that suppression is unwarranted in light of these
factors. See Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687, 690 (1982).
In its brief, the government advances a short disquisition
on recent Supreme Court case law reenforcing the Court’s
practice of suppressing evidence as a “last resort, not [as a] first
impulse[.]” Herring v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695, 700 (2009)
(quoting Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 591 (2006)). But
absent from the government’s brief is any serious attempt to
explain why the factors listed above favor its position.
Considering that the foundation of the District Court’s
suppression order was its determination that the recovery of the
gun was a direct product of Dupree’s encounter with the police,
one would think the government would have sought to directly
impugn that determination in order to win a reversal of that
order. The government’s pleadings in this Court reflect almost
no effort to that end and fall well short of the mark, as the
government has failed to tell us in even circumspect terms how
3
or why the causal connection between Dupree’s concededly
unlawful seizure and the recovery of the gun was severed.
Rather than place its arguments within any accepted
Fourth Amendment rubric, the government pins its hopes almost
entirely on a passage from the Supreme Court’s decision in
California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621. There, police officers on
patrol in a high-crime neighborhood observed several young
individuals on the curb flee when they saw the officers’ car.
The officers chased the individuals, one of whom, Hodari,
tossed aside what turned out to be crack cocaine before being
tackled and handcuffed. The question presented was “whether,
at the time he dropped the drugs, Hodari had been ‘seized’
within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 623
(footnote omitted). The Court posited that although a defendant
is “seized” through “the mere grasping or application of physical
force[,]” id. at 624, there is not a “continuing arrest” if the
defendant flees or escapes after the initial seizure, id. at 625. To
illustrate, the Court explained hypothetically that if the officer
“had laid his hands upon Hodari to arrest him, but Hodari had
broken away and had then cast away the cocaine, it would
hardly be realistic to say that that disclosure had been made
during the course of an arrest.” Id. (emphasis added and
citation omitted). The Court framed the “narrow question”
presented as “whether, with respect to a show of authority as
with respect to application of physical force, a seizure occurs
even though the subject does not yield.” Id. at 626. The Court
answered that question in the negative. See id. The Court
reasoned that public policy supported its conclusion because
“[s]treet pursuits always place the public at some risk, and
compliance with police orders to stop should therefore be
4
encouraged.” Id. at 627. “In sum,” the Court wrote, “assuming
that [the officer]’s pursuit in the present case constituted a ‘show
of authority’ enjoining Hodari to halt, since Hodari did not
comply with that injunction he was not seized until he was
tackled. The cocaine abandoned while he was running was in
this case not the fruit of a seizure[.]” Id. at 629.
Judge Hardiman concludes that the government has
forfeited its right to rely on Hodari D. by virtue of its concession
on appeal that Dupree, unlike Hodari, was seized at the outset of
his encounter with the police. That conclusion is not without
some force. The government undoubtedly could have been
more articulate, not to mention consistent, in these proceedings,
and there is no doubt that the government’s argument before the
District Court does not mirror the one it presses on appeal. But
legal arguments and pleadings need not be literary gems, and
this case is not one in which the government is seeking to
introduce into the record on appeal a factual circumstance it
never developed in the District Court or is pursuing a legal
theory it wholly failed to raise in the District Court. Cf. United
States v. Lockett, 406 F.3d 207, 212 (3d Cir. 2005); United
States v. Martinez-Hidalgo, 993 F.2d 1052, 1057-58 (3d Cir.
1993); United States v. Frank, 864 F.2d 992, 1006 (3d Cir.
1988). The overarching question throughout these proceedings
has been whether the Fourth Amendment’s protections reached
Dupree at the pivotal moment at which he discarded the gun. In
my view, the government adequately brought that question to
the District Court’s attention notwithstanding its erroneous
assertion before that court that Dupree was never seized. And
importantly, the District Court ruled on that very question,
concluding that “Dupree was seized notwithstanding the fact
5
that he subsequently broke free of Officer Mabry’s two-handed
grip,” and that “[t]he unlawful seizure of Dupree precipitated
Dupree’s flight, Officer Mabry’s and Officer Shippen’s pursuit
. . ., and the forced abandonment by Dupree of the firearm . . . .”
(App. 62-63.) Under these circumstances, I am not convinced
that we should enforce the waiver doctrine against the
government to the extent it relies on Hodari D. to make its case.
See Bagot v. Ashcroft, 398 F.3d 252, 256 (3d Cir. 2005) (“The
crucial question regarding waiver is whether [the plaintiff]
presented the argument with sufficient specificity to alert the
district court[.]” (quotation marks, other alteration and citation
omitted)). I nevertheless agree with Judge Hardiman that
affirmance is in order because, even if the government may
invoke Hodari D. on appeal, that case does not carry the day for
the government.
The passage in Hodari D. (italicized above) on which the
government relies is dicta. The government fleetingly – and
unconvincingly – disputes that characterization, but dicta it
surely is. Dicta are “judicial comment[s] made while delivering
a judicial opinion, but one[s] that [are] unnecessary to the
decision in the case and therefore not precedential . . . .”
Black’s Law Dictionary 1177 (9th ed. 2009); see also
Connecticut v. Doehr, 501 U.S. 1, 30 (1991) (Rehnquist, C.J.,
concurring) (dicta are discussions of “abstract and hypothetical
situations not before [the court]” (emphasis added)). The
question in Hodari D. was whether the suppression of Hodari’s
drugs was proper where Hodari was never seized before
abandoning them. The absence of a seizure at any point was a
key factual component driving the Court’s analysis and
underpinning its conclusion that the Fourth Amendment was not
6
implicated. The Court’s speculation on how it might have ruled
had Hodari been seized and then terminated the seizure on his
own initiative – in other words, a factual circumstance other
than the precise one presented – falls comfortably within the
quintessential definition of dicta. See State Auto Prop. & Cas.
Ins. Co. v. Pro Design, P.C., 566 F.3d 86, 92 (3d Cir. 2009)
(defining dicta as “statements of law in the opinion which could
not logically be a major premise of the selected facts of the
decision” (quotation marks, alteration, and citation omitted));
see also, e.g., IMO Indus. v. Kiekert AG, 155 F.3d 254, 261 n.4
(3d Cir. 1998). As such, it does not bind this Court. See N.J.
Media Group v. Ashcroft, 308 F.3d 198, 201 (3d Cir. 2002);
Town Sound & Custom Tops, Inc. v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 959
F.2d 468, 495 n.41 (3d Cir. 1992) (en banc).
To be sure, Supreme Court dicta, even while non-
binding, are still highly persuasive. See Official Comm. of
Unsecured Creditors of Cybergenics Corp. v. Chinery, 330 F.3d
548, 561 (3d Cir. 2003); In re McDonald, 205 F.3d 606, 612-13
(3d Cir. 2000). Nevertheless, this Court gives dicta as much
weight as it sees fit under the circumstances of a particular case.
See, e.g., Galli v. N.J. Meadowlands Comm’n, 490 F.3d 265,
274 (3d Cir. 2007). For two primary reasons, I do not believe
that we should, or even can, elevate Hodari D.’s dicta into
controlling authority in deciding this case, as the government in
effect requests and as our dissenting colleague evidently
believes we should do.
7
First, the government has cited precious few federal cases
that accord with its understanding of Hodari D.1 A shortage of
cases from other courts embracing that understanding does not,
of course, preclude us from charting new territory. That said, it
seems to me that we should proceed with great caution before
ascribing especial significance to dicta from a case that, despite
approximately twenty years on the books, has almost never
occasioned the result the government urges here, at least as far
as both my research and the government’s brief reflect. A
cautious approach is all the more appropriate given what I
perceive to be a manifest tension between the government’s
reading of Hodari D. and other strains of Fourth Amendment
jurisprudence.
Second, and maybe even more important, the
government’s interpretation of Hodari D. runs practically
headlong into this Court’s precedents. In United States v.
Coggins, 986 F.2d 651 (3d Cir. 1993), Coggins took a flight
from St. Thomas to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Unbeknownst to Coggins, a Drug Enforcement Administration
agent also onboard recognized Coggins as a drug trafficker.
1
The cases the government spotlights do it little good.
United States v. Williams, 608 F. Supp. 2d 325 (E.D.N.Y. 2008),
may be the government’s best hope, but it in no way binds our
Court. And in any event, I find both its reasoning and its result
unpersuasive as applied here. Passages from United States v.
Sprinkle, 106 F.3d 613 (4th Cir. 1997), arguably serve the
government’s cause in the abstract, but importantly, that case
makes no mention of Hodari D. The same goes for United
States v. Dawdy, 46 F.3d 1427 (8th Cir. 1995).
8
Later that night, as Coggins was waiting for a return flight to St.
Thomas, the agent approached and began questioning Coggins
and his traveling companions. When Coggins stood up and said
he needed to go to the bathroom, the agent told him to sit back
down. Coggins at first complied but soon thereafter ran away,
throwing plastic bags from his pockets while the agent chased
him. Coggins was arrested and the bags were discovered to
contain crack cocaine. Coggins was convicted of a drug offense
and appealed. The main issue before this Court was whether
Coggins was unlawfully seized when the agent was questioning
him. As we explained, “If Coggins was unlawfully seized, the
district court should have suppressed the evidence of the crack
cocaine that Coggins discarded while fleeing with [the agent] in
hot pursuit.” Id. at 653. We held that Coggins was seized by
the agent within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because
he had submitted to the agent’s show of authority by sitting
down after having asked for permission to go to the bathroom.
Id. We rejected the government’s reliance on Hodari D. to
show that Coggins was no longer seized after he had run away.
Id. at 653-54. We distinguished Hodari D. on the ground that
while Coggins initially yielded to the agent’s authority, Hodari
never did so at any time.2 Id. at 654.
Coggins and this case are separated by several degrees in
pure factual terms, but they are analytically indistinguishable as
2
We did not vacate Coggins’ conviction, however,
because we found that reasonable suspicion supported the
seizure. As noted, there is no dispute here that the officers’
seizure of Dupree was not supported by reasonable suspicion
and hence was unlawful.
9
far as Hodari D. is concerned. In both cases, the defendants
were seized, Dupree via the application of physical force and
Coggins via his submission to the agent’s show of authority. In
both cases, the defendants unilaterally terminated the seizure,
Dupree by breaking free from Officer Mabry’s grip and Coggins
by no longer submitting to the agent’s command. And in
Coggins, as here, the government argued that that unilateral act
on the defendant’s part removed the case from the Fourth
Amendment’s purview based on Hodari D.’s dicta. We rejected
that argument in Coggins. In my view, the same conclusion
must obtain here.
Like our dissenting colleague, I certainly see the logical
allure of the government’s position. A superficial study of the
facts of this case might well lead one to question why a court
would permit a criminal suspect to reap the exclusionary rule’s
benefits when he flees from law enforcement, even if he was
seized unlawfully. Add to the mix Hodari D.’s musings on
whether such a suspect is in fact still seized for Fourth
Amendment purposes while in flight, and the answer to that
question seems plain: the court should permit no such thing.
The critical problem with that framework and the result it yields
is that it both completely sidesteps the more sophisticated
inquiry our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence mandates and
effectively relieves the government of its burden on a
suppression motion.
There may come a day when the Supreme Court extends
the principle it articulated hypothetically in Hodari D.
Significantly, that day has not yet come. Until it does, I am
convinced that the police officers in this case recovered the gun
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in violation of Dupree’s Fourth Amendment rights and,
moreover, that the government has not shouldered its burden of
proving why the gun should not be suppressed as a consequence
of that violation. See, e.g., Mosley, 454 F.3d at 269.
In sum, I would hold that the government loses this
appeal both because it has not met its burden of demonstrating
the constitutionality of the recovery of the gun and because its
novel reliance on Hodari D., while not foreclosed, is unavailing.
Accordingly, while I concur in Judge Hardiman’s opinion in
most respects, I would also affirm the District Court’s
suppression order for the foregoing reasons.
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