United States v. Ray Mettetal, Jr. ( 2017 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-6871
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RAY WALLACE METTETAL, JR., a/k/a Steven Ray Maupin,
Defendant - Appellant,
------------------------------
CAROL ANNE SZURKOWSKI,
Court-Assigned Amicus Counsel.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at
Charlottesville. Norman K. Moon, Senior District Judge. (3:96-cr-50034-NKM-1)
Argued: October 26, 2017 Decided: December 4, 2017
Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge
Motz and Judge Harris joined.
ARGUED: Carol Anne Szurkowski, COVINGTON & BURLING, LLP, Washington,
D.C., Court-Assigned Amicus Counsel. Rachel Barish Swartz, OFFICE OF THE
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF:
Rick A. Mountcastle, Acting United States Attorney, Ronald M. Huber, Assistant United
States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlottesville,
Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
2
WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:
Ray Wallace Mettetal, Jr., seeks to expunge records of convictions vacated long
ago by this court because his arrest lacked probable cause. The district court declined to
expunge those records. For the following reasons, we affirm.
I
On August 22, 1995, Mettetal was arrested on the campus of Vanderbilt
University. The arrest occurred after a Vanderbilt employee called the campus police to
report that a man wearing a fake beard, a wig, and a dark suit was loitering in a campus
parking lot on a 90-degree morning.
Several officers responded. One of those officers later stated that Mettetal was
wearing “an obvious fake Afro wig and a fake beard that looked like Abraham Lincoln.”
JA 53. The officers asked Mettetal what he was doing in the parking lot. Mettetal
responded that he was looking for his girlfriend because he thought that she was seeing
someone else. Suspecting Mettetal of stalking, one of the officers asked him the woman’s
name. Mettetal refused to provide it.
When an officer asked Mettetal for identification, Mettetal initially said that he did
not have any identification with him. Another officer then threatened to arrest him for
trespassing, and Mettetal produced identification purportedly from the British West
Indies in the name of Steven Ray Maupin. The officers suspected that the identification
was forged because its covering had rough edges, indicating that it had been laminated
recently. The officers then asked their dispatcher to run a computer check on the name
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Steven Ray Maupin. After the check produced no information, the officers arrested
Mettetal for criminal trespass.
Following his arrest, the officers searched Mettetal’s bag and person. In his bag,
the police found, among other things, fake tattoos and a large hypodermic syringe filled
with a clear liquid. The syringe was later found to contain a saline solution. Once
Mettetal was taken into custody, he refused to answer questions or disclose his true
identity. The next day, the Nashville police learned from the FBI that the man was Ray
Wallace Mettetal, Jr., a physician from Harrisonburg, Virginia.
On August 25, 1995, three days after Mettetal’s arrest, Virginia police obtained
warrants to search his home and office. The information used to support these warrants
came directly from the circumstances that led to Mettetal’s arrest and the information
discovered during the search incident to his arrest. While searching Mettetal’s home, the
police found false identification documents in the name of Steven Ray Maupin, fake hair
and moustaches, makeup, a hospital uniform from the Vanderbilt medical center, and a
book on disguise techniques that contained notes describing the home, cars, and personal
history of one of his colleagues at the Vanderbilt hospital.
Shortly after the police searched Mettetal’s home, a local Virginia newspaper
printed a story about Mettetal’s arrest. The story mentioned that Mettetal had used the
name “Maupin” as an alias. An employee at a Harrisonburg storage facility saw the story
and informed the police that someone had rented a storage unit in December 1994 under
the name Steven Ray Maupin. Based on the information discovered as a result of
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Mettetal’s arrest, the police obtained a warrant to search the storage unit. During the
search, the police found a jar of the deadly toxin ricin.
Mettetal was then indicted on two counts in the Western District of Virginia.
Count I charged him with possession of a toxin (ricin) for use as a weapon, in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 175; Count II charged him with possession with intent to use five or more
false identification documents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(3).
At trial, Mettetal moved to suppress the evidence seized from his apartment and
storage facility. He argued that the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule prohibited the
district court from admitting any evidence that could be tied to his arrest, including the
false identification documents found in his home and the ricin found in the storage unit,
because that evidence was obtained illegally. After holding a suppression hearing, the
district court found that the police officers had probable cause to arrest Mettetal. In so
finding, the district court emphasized the following facts: that Mettetal gave the
Vanderbilt campus police an identification they suspected was false; that he was wearing
an elaborate disguise; that he refused to cooperate with the police; and that he claimed to
be looking for an unidentified female friend. Because the court concluded that the arrest
was lawful, it denied Mettetal’s motion to suppress. A jury then convicted Mettetal on
both of the counts brought against him.
Mettetal appealed his conviction on the ground that the district court erred in
denying his suppression motion. On appeal, this court overturned Mettetal’s conviction. It
found that neither Mettetal’s disguise nor his refusal to cooperate with the police
provided a reasonable basis to arrest him for trespass. And, because the evidence used to
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convict him “was the fruit of that unlawful arrest,” the court concluded that it should have
been suppressed. United States v. Mettetal, 213 F.3d 634, 634 (4th Cir. May 3, 2000)
(Table).
On remand, the district court again admitted the evidence against Mettetal,
reasoning that it was admissible because it was obtained as a result of a judicially-issued
warrant. A jury again convicted Mettetal in 2001, and we overturned his conviction a
second time, finding that all evidence discovered as a result of Mettetal’s unlawful arrest
was inadmissible. See United States v. Mettetal, 48 Fed. Appx. 895, 897 (4th Cir. 2002)
(per curiam). Following that decision, the district court dismissed the indictment against
Mettetal on December 10, 2002.
Twenty years after his arrest and fourteen years after the charges against him were
dismissed, Mettetal petitioned to have his criminal record expunged on two grounds.
First, he claimed to have faced a variety of difficulties in the years after judicial
proceedings concluded, and he contended that those difficulties were attributable to
records of his arrest and overturned convictions. Second, he claimed that because this
court had held that his arrest and convictions violated the constitution, they should be
expunged.
The district court considered—and ultimately rejected—Mettetal’s petition to have
his record expunged. After observing that courts “have the statutory power to expunge
documents relating to a criminal charge in only narrow situations not applicable here,” JA
97, the district court went on to consider whether it had ancillary jurisdiction under
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Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). 1
The Supreme Court there explained that federal courts have ancillary jurisdiction in only
two circumstances: (1) where necessary “to permit disposition by a single court of claims
that are, in varying respects and degrees, factually interdependent”; and (2) “to enable a
court to function successfully, that is, to manage its proceedings, vindicate its authority
and effectuate its decrees.” 511 U.S. at 379-80. The district court found that neither prong
of Kokkonen was satisfied in this case.
Mettetal now appeals. We first consider whether we may expunge Mettetal’s
criminal record for equitable reasons. Following our seven sister circuits that have
already considered the question, we hold that Kokkonen bars us from expunging this
record on equitable grounds. We shall then consider whether the fact of Mettetal’s
unlawful arrest—that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest Mettetal and search his
belongings—provides a separate basis for expunction relief. Because we find that
Mettetal’s second claimed grounds for expunction fails on the merits, we decline to
resolve the jurisdictional question.
II.
1
The Sixth Circuit usefully distinguished between supplemental jurisdiction and
ancillary jurisdiction in United States v. Field, 756 F.3d 911, 913 (6th Cir. 2014)
(“‘Supplemental’ or ‘pendent’ jurisdiction applies to claims asserted in a pending federal-
court case. ‘Ancillary’ jurisdiction applies to related proceedings that are technically
separate from the initial case that invoked federal subject-matter jurisdiction.”); See
also 13 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §
3523, at 154 (3d ed. 2008). Supplemental jurisdiction is treated under 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
Ancillary jurisdiction, by contrast, is governed by case law. See Kokkonen v. Guardian
Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994).
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The first portion of Mettetal’s pro se petition in the trial court sounded in equity,
and we thus turn first to the question of whether we may expunge Mettetal’s record on
equitable grounds. In support of his request for expungement, Mettetal cited the hardships
he claimed to have faced as a result of his criminal record. He contended that “he
continues to be harassed by the local medical community and has been unable to obtain
hospital privileges due to the existence of adverse information on his record.” JA 97. He
also complained that because of his record, he had been denied the right to acquire a
handgun license in Tennessee, and he asserted that he has had no further arrests or other
altercations with law enforcement since he was arrested in 1995. He argued that the
harms he has faced “outweigh the government interest” in keeping his criminal records.
JA 74. He therefore urged the district court to exercise its “inherent equitable power” to
“expunge criminal convictions.” Id.
It is elementary that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. They “possess
only that power authorized by the Constitution and statute, which is not to be expanded
by judicial decree.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994)
(internal citations omitted). Neither the Constitution nor any federal statute confers upon
federal courts the power to expunge a criminal conviction such as Mettetal’s.
The doctrine of ancillary jurisdiction, however, recognizes that in some
circumstances, federal courts have inherent authority to resolve disputes even absent an
express statutory grant of jurisdiction. The doctrine originated in “the notion that [when]
federal jurisdiction in a principal suit effectively controls the property or fund under
dispute, other claimants thereto should be allowed to intervene in order to protect their
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interests.” Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U.S. 1, 11 (1976). In other words, ancillary
jurisdiction is rooted in the view that claimants with access to federal court should not be
permitted to utilize their jurisdictional grant to the detriment of parties whose claims may
not be independently justiciable in federal court but are still plainly intertwined with the
federal case.
Before the Supreme Court decided Kokkonen in 1994, a few circuits had decided
that federal courts could invoke ancillary jurisdiction to expunge criminal records for
purely equitable reasons, but that they can do so only in the most exceptional
circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Schnitzer, 567 F.2d 536, 539 (2d Cir.
1977) (“[E]xpungement lies within the equitable discretion of the court, and relief usually
is granted only in ‘extreme circumstances.’”). 2
Those decisions, however, predate Kokkonen, which the Supreme Court decided in
part to ensure that ancillary jurisdiction should only be used to assist federal courts in the
exercise of their authorized judicial power. 511 U.S. at 379–80. As noted above,
Kokkonen explained that ancillary jurisdiction exists for “two separate, though sometimes
related, purposes: (1) to permit disposition by a single court of claims that are, in varying
respects and degrees, factually interdependent; and (2) to enable a court to function
successfully, that is, to manage its proceedings, vindicate its authority, and effectuate its
decrees.” Id. (citations omitted). Kokkonen thus did not strip courts of all ancillary
2
The Second Circuit has since found that Kokkonen prohibits federal courts from
invoking ancillary jurisdiction to expunge criminal convictions for purely equitable
reasons. See Doe v. United States, 833 F.3d 192, 199 (2d Cir. 2016).
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jurisdiction. What it did say is that ancillary jurisdiction, while it does exist, must be
sparingly exercised. In short, while federal courts have the “virtually unflagging
obligation” to exercise the jurisdiction granted them, Colorado River Water Conservation
v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 817 (1976), they should not rush to annex jurisdiction on
purely ancillary grounds.
Since the Supreme Court decided Kokkonen in 1994, seven of our sister circuits
have found that Kokkonen bars federal courts from invoking ancillary jurisdiction to
expunge criminal records for purely equitable reasons. 3 See United States v. Coloian, 480
F.3d 47, 52 (1st Cir. 2007) (“Kokkonen forecloses any ancillary jurisdiction to order
expungement based on . . . equitable reasons.”); Doe v. United States, 833 F.3d 192, 198
(2d Cir. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2160 (2017) (“[E]xpunging a record of conviction
on equitable grounds is entirely unnecessary to manage a court’s proceedings, vindicate
its authority, or effectuate its decrees”); United States v. Dunegan, 251 F.3d 477, 479 (3d
Cir. 2001) (finding that, when a petition rests on equitable grounds, “a District Court does
not have the jurisdiction to expunge a criminal record, even when ending in acquittal”);
United States v. Field, 756 F.3d 911 (6th Cir. 2014) (“[F]ederal courts lack ancillary
jurisdiction over motions for expungement based on purely equitable considerations.”);
3
It is worth noting that, shortly after the Supreme Court decided Kokkonen, the
Seventh Circuit held, without discussing Kokkonen, that district courts have inherent
authority to expunge judicial records for equitable reasons. See United States v. Flowers,
389 F.3d 737, 739 (7th Cir. 2004). However, the Seventh Circuit expressly overruled
Flowers in 2017 and found that Kokkonen bars district courts from expunging judicial
records on equitable grounds. See Wahi, 850 F.3d at 298
(“Because Flowers and Janik cannot be reconciled with Kokkonen, they are overruled.”).
10
United States v. Wahi, 850 F.3d 296, 302-03 (7th Cir. 2017) (“[A]ncillary jurisdiction
does not include a general equitable power to expunge judicial records in a criminal
case.”); United States v. Meyer, 439 F.3d 855, 862 (8th Cir. 2006) (“[I]n light of
Kokkonen, we conclude that ancillary jurisdiction does not extend to expungement of a
criminal conviction where the petitioner asserts solely equitable grounds.”); and United
States v. Sumner, 226 F.3d at 1014 (9th Cir. 2000) (“Expungement of a criminal record
solely on equitable grounds . . . does not serve [the ancillary jurisdiction purposes
articulated in Kokkonen ].”). No circuit has found that Kokkonen permits federal courts to
expunge judicial records for purely equitable reasons.
We agree with those holdings. Kokkonen delineates two circumstances in which
federal courts can invoke ancillary jurisdiction. Neither applies to petitions for equitable
expungement. The first Kokkonen prong—factual interdependence—is clearly not present
here. Kokkonen considered whether a suit for breach of settlement was factually
interdependent with the suit that originally gave rise to the settlement. The Supreme
Court noted that the original dispute and the question of whether the settlement
agreement had been breached had “nothing to do with each other; it would neither be
necessary nor even particularly efficient that they be adjudicated together.” Kokkonen,
511 U.S. at 380. The Court went on to observe that the facts relevant to determining
whether the settlement agreement had been breached “are quite separate from the facts to
be determined in the principal suit, and automatic jurisdiction over such contracts is in no
way essential to the conduct of federal-court business.” Id. at 381.
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The same logic applies to petitions for equitable expungement. As the Seventh
Circuit recently explained, a “request for equitable expungement is not factually
dependent on the underlying criminal case in any sense that matters. Instead, it will
always turn on facts collateral to or arising after the case is over—in short, matters
external to the criminal case itself.” United States v. Wahi, 850 F.3d 296, 302 (7th Cir.
2017). Here, the reasons Mettetal gives to support his petition for equitable expungement
are that he has not run afoul of the law since he was arrested in 1995 and that his criminal
record has had adverse professional and personal consequences. These matters, however,
arose after he was arrested and involve facts quite separate and distinct from the criminal
proceedings themselves. As such, Mettetal’s petition is not “interdependent” with
anything that was properly before the federal court. It therefore “requires its own basis
for jurisdiction.” Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 378. Nor would ancillary jurisdiction satisfy
Kokkonen’s second prong. Equitable considerations which arise after the termination of
court proceedings do not operate to vitiate decrees that went into effect years earlier.
In short, Mettetal’s petition for equitable expungement of his criminal records
does not implicate either of Kokkonen’s conditions for the exercise of ancillary
jurisdiction, and we join the unified front of circuit authority in rejecting his claim.
III.
Amicus counsel now argues on appeal that because this court previously declared
that Mettetal’s arrest and convictions were unlawful, we have ancillary jurisdiction to
consider his petition to expunge his records on those grounds. Assuming without
deciding that ancillary jurisdiction exists to consider Mettetal’s motion for expungement,
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we find that Mettetal’s petition fails on the merits. United States v. Smith, 395 F.3d 516,
519 (4th Cir. 2005) (we “may affirm on any grounds apparent from the record”); see, e.g.,
United States v. Field, 756 F.3d 911, 915-16 (6th Cir. 2014) (noting in dicta its agreement
with other circuits that “where motions for expungement challenge an unconstitutional
conviction or an illegal arrest or are otherwise based upon a constitutional claim, federal
courts may have jurisdiction to consider the motion”). On balance, expungement is rarely
justified. See United States v. Bagley, 899 F.2d 707, 708 (8th Cir. 1990).
Mettetal argues that where a court overturns an arrest or conviction for lack of
probable cause, that record must be expunged. As the Eighth Circuit pointed out in
Bagley, it is “difficult to imagine that expunction, a remedy to be used in extreme
circumstances, should be exercised every time a case is dismissed because evidence is
suppressed.” 899 F.2d at 708. Indeed, the cases Mettetal points to in support of this claim
involved much more “extreme circumstances,” like mass arrests intended to curb the
expression of civil rights. See Sullivan v. Murphy, 478 F.2d 938 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (arrest
of over 14,000 antiwar demonstrators); United States v. McLeod, 385 F.2d 734 (5th Cir.
1967) (large-scale arrests intended to harass and intimidate black voters). These
circumstances are so different from the ones before us that they afford no assistance to
Mettetal’s argument. 4
4
It is also worth noting that Congress has provided for expungement of criminal
records only in discrete and limited circumstances and has not come close to providing
such a remedy in circumstances such as these. See, e.g., 10 U.S.C. § 1565(e) (2006)
(requiring expungement of DNA records after a court overturns a military conviction); 18
U.S.C. § 3607(c) (2006) (permitting expungement of criminal records in enumerated drug
(Continued)
13
The judiciary and the public possess an independent interest in maintaining a full
and accurate account of court proceedings and the judiciary’s own role in the vindication
of criminal defendants’ constitutional rights. See Doe v. Public Citizen, 749 F.3d 246,
266 (4th Cir. 2014) (“[P]ublic access promotes not only the public’s interest in
monitoring the functioning of the courts but also the integrity of the judiciary.”); Jessup
v. Luther, 277 F.3d 926, 928 (7th Cir. 2002) (linking full judicial records to “the values
protected by the free-speech and free-press clauses of the First Amendment” and to
adequate public monitoring of judicial performance); Nixon v. Warner Communications,
435 U.S. 589, 602 (1978) (recognizing the “presumption . . . in favor of public access to
judicial records”). We find no reason to believe that this interest is not present here.
In sum, then, Mettetal’s petition falls short of the criteria necessary for the court to
expunge the records of his vacated arrest and convictions.
The judgment of the district court is accordingly
AFFIRMED.
possession cases); 42 U.S.C. § 14132(d) (2006) (permitting expungement of FBI DNA
records in certain cases after a conviction is overturned). Legislation to further broaden
the application of expungement has failed to progress. See, e.g. H.R. 2449 112th Cong.
(2011).
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