USCA11 Case: 23-12456 Document: 24-1 Date Filed: 10/16/2023 Page: 1 of 4
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-12456
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
WELLEKSON GONCALVES SILVA,
Petitioner-Appellee,
versus
ADRIENE FERREIRA DOS SANTOS,
Respondent-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-03371-ELR
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 23-12456
Before ROSENBAUM, LUCK, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
This is the second appeal in this international kidnapping
case. In the first appeal, we found that the district court made two
legal errors. First, “the district court was mistaken when it con-
cluded that it did not have the choice to consider” the father’s “non-
credible denials as evidence supporting” the mother’s “testimony.”
Silva v. Dos Santos,
68 F.4th 1247, 1259 (11th Cir. 2023). And second,
the district court erred in “concluding that a single witness’s testi-
mony [was] necessarily insufficient to satisfy the clear-and-convinc-
ing-evidence standard.”
Id. “Because the district court’s reasoning
did not account for these principles, we vacate[d] the district
court’s order and remand[ed] for further consideration in light of
[our] opinion.”
Id. at 1261.
On remand, the district court reviewed and considered the
testimony and evidence from the evidentiary hearing. Based on its
review, the district court granted the father’s petition for the return
of his daughter to Brazil.
The mother appeals. She argues that we must vacate the
district court’s order because it violated the mandate rule. Our
mandate, the mother contends, required the district court to “an-
nounce how” the application of the rule—that disbelief of a liti-
gant’s testimony can be substantive evidence against that litigant—
affected its judgment. And, the mother asserts, our mandate re-
quired the district court “to consider and explain why” the
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23-12456 Opinion of the Court 3
mother’s testimony “alone failed to support a finding by clear and
convincing evidence.” But, the mother argues, the district court’s
order didn’t do the things we required it to do because it was “in-
sufficient” and “perfunctory.”
“We review de novo the district court’s interpretation and
application of” our mandate. Cox Enters., Inc. v. News-J. Corp.,
794
F.3d 1259, 1272 (11th Cir. 2015). Under the mandate rule, “when
an appellate court issues a specific mandate it is not subject to in-
terpretation; the district court has an obligation to carry out the
order.”
Id. at 1271 (quotation omitted). It must “implement both
the letter and the spirit of the mandate taking into account the ap-
pellate court’s opinion and the circumstances it embraces.”
Id.
(quotation and omissions omitted).
Here, the district court carried out both the letter and spirit
of our mandate. In the conclusion section of our first opinion, we
summarized the two legal principles we instructed the district
court to consider on remand. First, “when a factfinder does not
believe an interested witness’s testimony, it may—but is not re-
quired to—consider that witness’s discredited testimony as corrob-
orating substantive evidence that the opposite of the testimony is
true.” Silva, 68 F.4th at 1261. And second, “when a single witness
provides the only evidence on some point, that testimony, without
corroboration, can still meet the standard of clear and convincing
evidence if the factfinder concludes that it is credible.” Id. Then,
we vacated the original order and remanded for further considera-
tion of the evidence in light of these two legal principles. Id.; see
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4 Opinion of the Court 23-12456
also id. at 1250 (“Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order
and remand for further consideration.”).
That’s what the district court did. It “recognize[d]” the two
legal errors it made in its original order. And, with our guidance in
mind—“heed[ing]” our opinion—it “again reviewed and consid-
ered the testimony and evidence” from the evidentiary hearing, in-
cluding the father’s incredible testimony and the mother’s testi-
mony. “Upon such renewed review and consideration,” the dis-
trict court granted the father’s petition to return his daughter to
Brazil.
While the order on remand is brief, the district court did
what we asked it to do. It recognized the errors that it made in the
original order, and, guided by our opinion in the first appeal, the
district court considered the evidence in light of the two legal prin-
ciples. We remanded for “further consideration” based on our
opinion, see id. at 1261, and the district court “considered” the cor-
rect legal principles and applied them to the evidence.
Because we didn’t require the district court to do more than
that, it did not violate the mandate rule by not saying more. And
because the district court did not violate the mandate rule, we do
not have to consider the mother’s arguments about why we should
enter judgment on the merits in her favor, or why we should “re-
mand . . . to a different district court judge.”
AFFIRMED.
