US v. Gouse

Filing

OPINION issued by Jeffrey R. Howard, Chief Appellate Judge; Juan R. Torruella, Appellate Judge and William J. Kayatta , Jr., Appellate Judge. Published. [14-1499]

Case: 14-1499

Document: 00116878641

Page: 1

Date Filed: 08/21/2015

Entry ID: 5931721

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit

No. 14-1499
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
DAMIEN GOUSE,
Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. John J. McConnell, Jr., U.S. District Judge]

Before
Howard, Chief Judge,
Torruella and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.

Steven A. Feldman, with whom Feldman and Feldman was on brief,
for appellant.
Donald C. Lockhart, Assistant United States Attorney, with
whom Peter F. Neronha, United States Attorney, was on brief, for
appellee.

August 21, 2015

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HOWARD, Chief Judge.

Date Filed: 08/21/2015

Entry ID: 5931721

Appellant-Defendant Damien Gouse

was serving a state sentence in a Massachusetts prison when the
federal government indicted him in the District of Rhode Island
for, inter alia, being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18
U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) & 924(e).
Rhode

Island

Massachusetts

to

face

before

The government then brought Gouse to

those

the

charges

federal

case

but
was

returned

him

resolved.

to
This

ostensibly violated the anti-shuttling section of the Interstate
Agreement on Detainers ("IAD"); a provision which required the
United States to complete all proceedings against Gouse before
sending him back to Massachusetts. As a result, the district court
dismissed the federal case without prejudice.

The United States

then re-indicted Gouse, which he unsuccessfully moved to dismiss.
Gouse now argues that the IAD violation in the first federal case,
paired with the government's alleged attempt to circumvent the IAD
in the second federal case, required dismissal of all federal
charges against him.

Finding no errors, we affirm.
I.

On February 8, 2008, the federal government charged Gouse
in the District of Rhode Island with a number of gun and drug
offenses.

("First Federal Charges")

The state of Rhode Island

also charged Gouse with analogous state offenses.

("RI Charges")

Neither jurisdiction took Gouse into custody at that time.

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The following month, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
charged Gouse with unrelated gun and assault crimes.
Charges")

("Mass

With the First Federal Charges still pending, Gouse was

convicted of the Mass Charges and, in September 2009, sentenced to
consecutive prison terms of 15-20 years and 2-5 years, to be served
in a Massachusetts state facility.

A federal arrest warrant

respecting the First Federal Charges was forwarded to that prison
and remained on file there through 2013.
During this incarceration, Gouse requested that Rhode
Island resolve the RI Charges. He was thus moved to a correctional
facility in that state in late 2009 and subsequently arraigned.

A

federal detainer for the First Federal Charges was lodged against
him there, and a federal grand jury soon indicted him.

At his

federal arraignment, the Magistrate Judge informed Gouse that he
would be housed at the Rhode Island state prison.

Gouse did not

object.
To avoid duplicative prosecutions, Rhode Island dismissed
the RI Charges in January 2010 and transferred Gouse back to
Massachusetts to serve that state's sentence.
Charges

were

still

pending

at

the

time

The First Federal
of

that

transfer.

Accordingly, at a status conference in the federal case in March
2010, Gouse referenced this potential IAD anti-shuttling violation;
i.e., he had been returned to Massachusetts before the federal
claims were resolved.

Out of an abundance of caution, the federal

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government moved to dismiss the matter without prejudice.
however, requested dismissal with prejudice.

Gouse,

The district court

(Smith, C.J., D.R.I.) held a hearing at which it adopted the
government's approach.

Gouse was again returned to Massachusetts

to continue serving his state sentence.
About one year later, a federal grand jury in Rhode
Island

re-indicted

Gouse

on

the

same

gun

and

drug

charges.

("Second Federal Charges") The government secured Gouse's presence
from Massachusetts for this second federal case through a writ of
habeas corpus ad prosequendum.

During his arraignment, and in a

later-filed motion to dismiss, Gouse argued that the shuttling
violation

from

the

First

Federal

Charges,

coupled

with

the

government's allegedly improper use of a habeas writ in the second
federal case, warranted dismissal of this new indictment.

The

district court (McConnell, J., D.R.I.) rejected that contention.
After trial, Gouse was convicted on a federal felon in
possession of a firearm charge (the other counts had previously
been dismissed) and, on March 25, 2014, was sentenced to ten years
in prison to run concurrently with the Massachusetts sentence.

At

the conclusion of those proceedings, the U.S. government returned
Gouse to the Massachusetts prison facility.
This timely appeal followed.

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II.
We review a decision on a motion to dismiss under the IAD
for abuse of discretion.

United States v. Kelley, 402 F.3d 39, 41

(1st Cir. 2005). As always, any legal questions implicated by that
conclusion are reviewed de novo and any factual findings for clear
error.

Id.
III.
To

facilitate

the

transfer

of

prisoners

from

one

jurisdiction to another, the federal government and a majority of
states have consented to the IAD. The provision at issue here, the
"anti-shuttling" section, is triggered when an inmate is imprisoned
in one state (the "sending state"), and another jurisdiction (the
"receiving state") utilizes a detainer to obtain custody of the
individual for proceedings on outstanding charges.
2 § 2, Arts. II & IV(a).

18 U.S.C. App.

The receiving state must then resolve the

claims in the charging document which brought the defendant into
its jurisdiction, before returning the defendant to the sending
state.

Art. IV(e).

The provision was designed to minimize the

disruption to an inmate's full and meaningful participation in the
available rehabilitative programs offered by a sending state.

See

United States v. Currier, 836 F.2d 11, 13-14 (1st Cir. 1987).
In this case, Gouse alleges a violation of that section
of the IAD.

Though his arguments are somewhat difficult to parse,

three issues percolate to the surface.

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First, is whether the

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putative shuttling violation in the first federal case required
dismissal of the second federal proceeding.

Since it did not, our

inquiry then shifts to whether the court abused its discretion in
dismissing the first federal case without prejudice and, whether it
erred in failing to dismiss the second federal indictment.

We

address each issue in-turn.
i.
A threshold question in this case is whether an IAD
violation

from

a

federal

case

dismissed

without

prejudice

nonetheless requires the dismissal of a subsequent, identical
proceeding.

Gouse seems to believe that the first violation

required dismissal of the second case since, in his view, the
government was simply attempting "to circumvent the agreement by
re-indicting him for the exact same conduct."
That perspective, however, contradicts the plain language
of the agreement.

A violation of the anti-shuttling provision of

the IAD generally warrants dismissal with prejudice.

18 U.S.C.

App. 2 § 2, Art. IV(e); see Alabama v. Bozeman, 533 U.S. 146 (2001)
(holding that there is no de minimis exception when a state
violates the IAD). But, the Act explicitly carves out an exception
when the United States is the receiving state.

In such matters,

the court has a choice: the dismissal can be with or without
prejudice.
courts

are

18 U.S.C. App. 2 § 9(1).
tasked

with

To make that determination,

considering:

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the

seriousness

of

the

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offenses; the reasons underpinning the violation; and the impact of
a re-prosecution on the administration of both the IAD and justice.
Id.
For this exception to have any meaning, a violation from
one

case

(where

the

U.S.

is

the

receiving

state)

cannot

automatically require the dismissal of a subsequent proceeding. As
the

government

notes,

finding

otherwise

would

convert

every

dismissal without prejudice into one with prejudice; it would just
be entered in subsequent litigation.

It would, moreover, render

moot the provision of the exception which explicitly calls on
courts to consider whether the government should have a second bite
at the apple.

Gouse's position would thus contravene our duty to

try and give every word or phrase of a law meaning.

See Duncan v.

Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 174 (2001).
The legislative history of the exception -- to the extent
relevant given the clarity of the text -- further bolsters this
reading. The United States initially signed on to the IAD in 1970,
An Act to Enact the Interstate Agreement on Detainers into Law,
Pub. L. 91-538, 84 Stat. 1397 (1970), though it did not add this
exception

until

1988,

Interstate

Agreement

on

Detainer

Amendments, Pub. L. 100-690, § 7059, 102 Stat. 4181 (1988).
exception

was

only

adopted

because

Congress

was

Act
This

increasingly

concerned with cases like United States v. Schrum, 504 F. Supp. 23,
28 (D. Kan. 1980), in which courts were consistently dismissing

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federal

prosecutions

(with

violations.

Congress,

unnecessarily

harsh

prejudice,"

and,

Page: 8

prejudice)

of

leave

Entry ID: 5931721

for

de

minimis

IAD

sought

therefore,

sanction

instead,

Date Filed: 08/21/2015

to

"remove

the

automatic
the

matter

dismissal
to

the

with

court's

discretion. 134 Cong. Rec. S17371 (1988). It would be curious (if
not plainly bizarre) for Congress to provide courts with this
discretion

to

address

an

IAD

violation,

while

simultaneously

demanding a subsequent dismissal for the very same error.
We are confident that a violation of the IAD in one case
dismissed

without

prejudice

does

dismissal in a subsequent proceeding.

not

automatically

mandate

To tackle the remainder of

Gouse's claims then, we evaluate each motion to dismiss.
ii.
Although Gouse implies that the First Federal Charges
should have been dismissed with, rather than without, prejudice he
fails to provide us with any reasons why.1

Thus, to the extent he

takes issue with the decision on the First Federal Charges, he has
failed to provide sufficient argument and we deem it waived.

See

United States v. Oladosu, 744 F.3d 36, 39 (1st Cir. 2014) ("Because
the argument is underdeveloped, it is waived.").

1

The government concedes that Gouse could not have likely
appealed the dismissal without prejudice at the time the district
court rendered that decision. See United States v. Fermia, 57 F.3d
43, 49 (1st Cir. 1995).
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Nonetheless, even giving Gouse the benefit of the doubt
and reviewing the first decision on our own accord, we would still
find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in
choosing the "without prejudice" path.

As noted, the IAD provides

a number of factors for courts to consider when making this
determination.

18 U.S.C. App. 2 § 9(1).

We have said that

"[a]ssuming no error of law as to the facts to be considered and no
error of fact, the weight a court gives to the factors is usually
upheld absent a clear error of judgment."

Kelley, 402 F.3d at 42.

Here, the district court engaged in a reasonable analysis
of the relevant factors which we can quickly address.

First, the

court concluded that the charges related to a "distribution-level
quantity of drugs and a gun that was sufficient to trigger a 924(c)
charge," and thus were extremely serious offenses that "should not
go completely without the potential of prosecution just by virtue
of this technical violation."

Second, the court stated "I just

don't see anything here other than what amounts to a clerical and
administrative mistake."

In other words, the violation was a pure

accident that only required a "without prejudice" dismissal. Given
those two conclusions, the district court reasonably determined
that re-prosecution was both in the interest of the IAD and in the
interest of justice.
The district court carefully went through the different
factors, weighed the potential of re-prosecution with the harm

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caused by the accidental violation, and then rationally concluded
that dismissal without prejudice was proper. In doing so, it acted
well within the bounds of its discretion.

See, e.g., id.; United

States v. McKinney, 395 F.3d 837 (8th Cir. 2005); United States v.
Gezelman, 522 F. Supp. 2d 344 (D. Mass. 2007).

We, quite simply,

can find no reason to question the district court's determination.
iii.
As for the Second Federal Charges, Gouse contends that in
using a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum, the government did
an "end-run" around the IAD.

He relies extensively on United

States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340 (1978), to suggest that the mere use
of the writ itself was problematic.

Although his briefing is

murky, Gouse also seems to be saying that this was particularly
egregious because of the prior IAD violation. That is, after being
called out for an IAD anti-shuttling violation, the government
deliberately and, allegedly in bad faith, sought to avoid the
strict requirements of the IAD by utilizing a writ.
The problem for Gouse, as he actually acknowledges in his
own brief, is that the use of a habeas writ alone is not proscribed
by Mauro.

Instead, all Mauro says is that once the IAD is

implicated,

its

requirements

must

be

followed

even

if

a

jurisdiction attempts to obtain custody of a prisoner by way of a
habeas writ.

Mauro, 436 U.S. at 361-62 (noting that the writ can

constitute a "written request for temporary custody"); United

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States

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v.

Pleau,

680

Page: 11

F.3d

1,

5

Date Filed: 08/21/2015

(1st

Cir.

2012)

Entry ID: 5931721

(en

banc)

(explaining that in such a circumstance, "the writ had been used as
part of the IAD process.")

To prevail then, Gouse cannot just say

that the government intentionally avoided the IAD through a writ,
or that the initial error somehow enhanced the requirements on the
government such that an unyielding adherence to the letter of the
IAD was required.2

Instead, he must still show that a specific

aspect of the IAD -- for instance, the anti-shuttling provision or
the speedy trial requirement -- was violated.3
Gouse fails to do so.

Indeed, he does not even point to

a specific rule or requirement that the government allegedly
ignored in this second federal case.

Nor does he explain how a

request under the IAD would have been any different than the path
taken by the government.

In fact, Gouse's counsel was asked

several times at oral argument to explain the precise harm that was
caused by the government's action; he was repeatedly unable to do
so.

2

Such an argument is particularly dubious in this case where
the federal government was blameless for the circumstances
surrounding the anti-shuttling violation.
3

We do note that there are more difficult questions embedded
in this case; most notably, whether a federal arrest warrant
received by a state prison constitutes a detainer triggering the
IAD and, if so, whether it continues to apply in a case which
follows a proceeding dismissed without prejudice.
As the
government urges, we will instead assume that the IAD applies in
such circumstances (and thus applies in both federal cases here)
without reaching those more difficult questions.
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Of

course,

Gouse

Page: 12

does

provision throughout his brief.

Date Filed: 08/21/2015

reference

the

Entry ID: 5931721

anti-shuttling

To the extent he is again relying

on that section, his claim quite plainly fails for a simple reason:
no

shuttling

violation

occurred

in

the

second

federal

case.

Instead, Gouse was incarcerated in a Massachusetts facility and was
then

moved

to

a

federal

facility

in

Rhode

Island

once

the

indictment for the Second Federal Charges issued. He was housed at
a federal facility through and including his federal sentencing on
March 25, 2014.

It was only at the end of this second federal case

that Gouse was returned to the Massachusetts state facility. As no
violation

of

the

IAD

occurred

(shuttling

or

otherwise),

no

dismissal was necessary.
IV.
Accordingly, any error that occurred in the first case
was addressed by the court's proper decision to dismiss the matter
without prejudice.

Since the second case was also then handled

without error, we affirm.

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