{"id":1887,"date":"2008-06-22T06:54:11","date_gmt":"2008-03-17T07:28:12","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-17T07:28:12","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1887","title":{"rendered":"Plea to a traffic ticket not collateral estoppel in a federal criminal case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defendant’s plea to a traffic charge is not collateral estoppel to bar him from contesting the stop in a federal criminal case. The \u00a7 1983 case law, including Heck<\/em><\/a>, does not apply in a criminal case. United States v. Delano, 543 F. Supp. 2d 791 (N.D. Ohio 2008):<\/p>\n

In its initial ruling, this Court collaterally estopped Defendant Delano from asserting that he did not commit the traffic violations. The prosecution’s brief asserts that this was proper, and Bies v. Bagley<\/em>‘s ruling on collateral estoppel does not govern this case. In Bies<\/em>, the Sixth Circuit found that “collateral estoppel may only be used by the accused.” Bies<\/em>, 2008 WL 507818 at *13. The United States argues that the Bies<\/em> decision cited cases that had ruled that collateral estoppel could not be used against a defendant when it would estop a defendant from contesting an element of the defense. Thus, it argues that the prosecution can use traffic violations to collaterally estop a defendant in the context of a motion to suppress. The Court finds this unpersuasive. Bies<\/em> stated that the prosecution could not collaterally estop a defendant “[b]ecause of a criminal defendant’s ‘interest of transcending value’ in vindicating his rights in a criminal case.” Id. Defendant Delano’s rights under the Fourth Amendment are at issue in this motion to suppress. As such, the Court finds that Bies<\/em>‘s holding applies in this contest.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the United States argues, that if this Court were to find that Defendant Delano had not committed the traffic violations, it would undermine the principles of comity as stated in Heck v. Humphrey<\/em> and the Full Faith and Credit statute. 512 U.S. 477, 484 (1994); 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 1738. Heck v. Humphrey<\/em>, however, emphasized that a criminal defendant should not be allowed to collaterally attack his state-court conviction in federal court via a civil suit. This case, by contrast, is not a civil \u00a7 1983 action, but a criminal action against the Defendant. For these reasons, the Court determines that it must amend its past order and not apply collateral estoppel to Defendant Delano.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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