FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

VICTOR MANUEL RAMIREZ, AKA 

Pato, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22-50045 

D.C. No. 

8:20-cr-00134-

SVW-1 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 13, 2023

Pasadena, California

Filed April 18, 2024

Before: Barrington D. Parker, Jr.,* Jay S. Bybee, and 

Kenneth K. Lee, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Lee

* The Honorable Barrington D. Parker, Jr., United States Circuit Judge 

for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting by 

designation.
2 USA V. RAMIREZ

SUMMARY**

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion 

to suppress in a case which the defendant contended that a 

police officer impinges on the Fourth Amendment by asking 

about parole status during a traffic stop. 

The defendant argued that asking about parole status 

gives the police license to search a parolee—who typically 

agrees to future searches as a condition of his release—for 

general criminal activity unrelated to the traffic stop. The 

panel held that asking about parole status during a traffic 

stop does not offend the Fourth Amendment because the 

question reasonably relates to the officer’s safety and 

imposes a negligible burden. 

The panel remanded in part so that the district court can, 

as the government agrees, correct the written judgment to 

conform it to the oral pronouncement of sentence. 

COUNSEL

Deborah E. Gonzalez (argued), Deputy Federal Public 

Defender; Caroline S. Platt, Assistant Federal Public 

Defender; Cuauhtemoc Ortega, Federal Public Defender; 

Federal Public Defender’s Office, Los Angeles, California; 

for Defendant-Appellant. 

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
USA V. RAMIREZ 3 

Michael J. Morse (argued), Assistant United States 

Attorney, Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section; Bram 

M. Alden, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Criminal 

Appeals Section; E. Martin Estrada, United States Attorney; 

United States Department of Justice, Office of the United 

States Attorney, Los Angeles, California; for PlaintiffAppellee.

OPINION

LEE, Circuit Judge: 

Can a police officer during a traffic stop ask someone if 

he is on parole? Appellant Victor Ramirez contends that 

asking that question impinges on the Fourth Amendment 

because it gives the police license to search a parolee—who 

typically agrees to future searches as a condition of his 

release—for general criminal activity unrelated to the traffic 

stop. We disagree and hold that an officer may ask about 

parole status because it reasonably relates to the officer’s 

safety and imposes a negligible burden. 

We thus affirm the denial of Ramirez’s motion to 

suppress the loaded firearm found during the traffic stop. 

We also remand in part so that the district court can conform 

its written sentence to its oral pronouncement, a request the 

government does not oppose. 

BACKGROUND

In July 2020, Officers Dorin Buchanan and Patrick 

Marshal pulled over Victor Ramirez after witnessing him 

speed in a residential neighborhood, fail to stop at a stop 

sign, and not use a turn signal. Before pulling Ramirez over, 
4 USA V. RAMIREZ

one of the officers recognized him as a gang member based 

on an earlier encounter. 

After Ramirez stopped his car, Officer Buchanan

approached and immediately asked: “What’s up my man? 

You on probation or parole?” Ramirez answered, “Parole.” 

Officer Buchanan then asked, “For what?” and Ramirez 

responded, “For a firearm.” 

Officer Buchanan followed up with a few more 

questions, including when he last checked in with his parole 

officer, where he lived, whose car he was driving, and what 

he was doing in the area. During this exchange, Officer 

Buchanan could see that Ramirez had several gang-related

tattoos. And based on those tattoos, Officer Buchanan 

claimed to know that Ramirez was in an area populated by 

rival gang members. Officer Buchanan testified that it 

would be “uncommon” for a rival gang member to be in the

area “without a firearm.”

Officer Buchanan instructed Ramirez to turn off the car. 

He then asked, “You don’t got to reach for it, but do you 

have a driver’s license?” Ramirez stated he did but that it 

was not with him. Next, Officer Buchanan asked Ramirez 

to put his right hand on the back of his head and unbuckle 

his safety belt with his left hand. 

While Ramirez’s right hand was on his head and his left 

hand was hanging out the car window, Officer Buchanan

asked Ramirez if he had a “strap” on him. Ramirez

answered, “To be honest with you, I do.” Officer Buchanan

responded, “It is, what it is. A man like you is not going to 

drive through that neighborhood without a strap, you feel 

me?” Ramirez then informed Officer Buchanan that the gun 

was in the glove compartment of the car. 
USA V. RAMIREZ 5

Once Ramirez was out of the car, the officers retrieved a 

loaded 9mm semiautomatic pistol from the glove 

compartment. Officers also checked the computer system in 

their patrol car and confirmed that Ramirez was on parole. 

A federal grand jury indicted Ramirez for possessing a 

firearm and ammunition as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g)(1). Ramirez moved to suppress the gun and 

ammunition, arguing that the officers unreasonably 

prolonged the stop by “engaging in a fishing expedition for 

hypothetical criminal activity rather than addressing the 

purported reason for the traffic stop.” 

At the hearing on Ramirez’s motion to suppress, Officer 

Buchanan testified that he asked Ramirez whether he was on 

probation or parole “[f]or officer safety and to confirm [his] 

suspicion that [Ramirez] was actively on parole.” When 

asked how a person being on parole relates to officer safety, 

Officer Buchanan responded: “Generally, someone who is 

on parole has been to prison. They have been released from 

the prison systems. . . . So they had previously violated some 

sort of law . . . [been] found guilty, convicted, sentenced to 

a prison term, released, and whatever that crime was could 

be a violent crime, a weapons possession or something of 

that nature.” 

In an earlier declaration, Officer Buchanan stated that it 

is his “practice” to try to confirm a person’s parole status 

when interacting with people he knows have been on parole. 

In the next sentence he also explained that he knows that 

people on parole are “subject to search and seizure by any 

law enforcement officer, at any time of the day or night, 

without a warrant, reasonable suspicion, or probable cause.” 

The district court denied Ramirez’s motion to suppress,

and Ramirez pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm and 
6 USA V. RAMIREZ

ammunition as a felon. As part of the plea agreement, 

Ramirez reserved his right to challenge the district court’s 

denial of his motion to suppress and withdraw his guilty plea 

should he prevail. The district court sentenced Ramirez to 

63 months in prison. 

STANDARD OF REVIEW

“We review the district court’s denial of a motion to 

suppress de novo and its factual findings for clear error.” 

United States v. Taylor, 60 F.4th 1233, 1239 (9th Cir. 2023), 

cert. denied, No. 23-5743, 2024 WL 674890 (Feb. 20, 2024). 

ANALYSIS

I. Officer Buchanan did not violate Ramirez’s Fourth 

Amendment rights by asking him if he was on parole. 

A. Police officers may prolong a traffic stop to attend 

to safety concerns. 

When the police pull someone over for a traffic violation, 

the officer can obviously investigate that traffic infraction. 

Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 354 (9th Cir. 

2015) (analogizing a traffic stop to a Terry stop). But a

traffic stop “exceeding the time needed to handle the matter 

for which the stop was made violates the Constitution’s 

shield against unreasonable seizures.” Id. at 350. Thus, “[t]o 

be lawful, a traffic stop must be limited in its scope.” Taylor, 

60 F.4th at 1239 (citing Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 354–55). 

Besides investigating the traffic violation that warranted 

the stop, a police officer can also make “ordinary inquiries 

incident to the traffic stop” and “attend to related safety 
USA V. RAMIREZ 7 

concerns.” Id. (quoting Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 354–55).1 

The Supreme Court has held that lawful “inquiries incident 

to a traffic stop” may include “checking [a] driver’s license, 

determining whether there are outstanding warrants against 

the driver, and inspecting the automobile’s registration and 

proof of insurance.” Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 355. The Court 

has also held that “attend[ing] to related safety concerns”

includes “certain negligibly burdensome precautions in 

order to complete his mission safely.” Id. at 354, 356. So, 

for example, an officer may order the driver of a vehicle to 

exit the vehicle during a traffic stop. Id. at 356 (citing 

Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 110 (1977) (per

curiam) (“Establishing a face-to-face confrontation 

diminishes the possibility, otherwise substantial, that the 

driver can make unobserved movements; this, in turn, 

reduces the likelihood that the officer will be the victim of 

an assault.”)). 

Following such guidance, this court has held that an 

officer may extend a traffic stop to conduct “a criminal 

history check” because it “is a negligibly burdensome 

precaution required for officer safety.” United States v. 

Hylton, 30 F.4th 842, 846 (9th Cir. 2022). An officer may 

not, however, extend a traffic stop to run an “ex-felon 

registration check”—i.e., a computer check to ensure that a 

felon is properly registered under state law—because such a 

check “in no way advance[s] officer safety.” United States 

v. Evans, 786 F.3d 779, 787 (9th Cir. 2015). Similarly, this 

court has held that an officer may not extend a traffic stop to 

demand identification from a passenger where “knowing 

1 An officer may prolong the stop further if further detention is supported 

by reasonable suspicion of a crime independent of the basis for the stop. 

Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 357–58.
8 USA V. RAMIREZ

[the passenger’s] name would not . . . ma[ke] the officers any 

safer.” United States v. Landeros, 913 F.3d 862, 868 (9th 

Cir. 2019). An officer, however, may extend a traffic stop 

to ask about weapons. Taylor, 60 F.4th at 1240.

B. Asking Ramirez whether he was on parole

reasonably relates to officer safety.

Officer Buchanan did not violate Ramirez’s Fourth 

Amendment right when he asked about his parole status 

because it is a negligibly burdensome measure that 

reasonably relates to officer safety. Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 

356. 

The Supreme Court has recognized that officer safety 

“stems from the mission of the stop itself” because “[t]raffic 

stops are especially fraught with danger to police officers, so 

an officer may need to take certain negligibly burdensome 

precautions in order to complete his mission safely.” Id.

(quotation marks and citations omitted). And in assessing 

potential risks involved in a traffic stop, it is useful for a 

police officer to know if the person remains on parole 

because a parolee has committed a crime serious enough to 

have merited prison time. To be sure, a parolee may not 

necessarily be more dangerous than a non-parolee. For 

example, someone may have served time for a serious but 

non-violent crime such as tax fraud. But all else being equal, 

it is reasonable for a police officer to consider taking

additional precautions when dealing with someone who 

served prison time. Officer Buchanan’s encounter with 

Ramirez underscores the potential dangers during a traffic

stop. Faced with a parolee (who, it turned out, had a loaded

gun in the car), Officer Buchanan took precautions in dealing 

with Ramirez (e.g., asking him not to reach for his driver’s 
USA V. RAMIREZ 9 

license, directing him to put his right hand behind his back 

when unbuckling his seat belt). 

Asking someone about his parole status is substantially 

similar to running a criminal history check during a traffic 

stop—a practice that we have held passes muster under the 

Fourth Amendment. See Hylton, 30 F.4th at 848 (allowing 

criminal history checks during traffic stops for officer safety 

reasons). Indeed, a person’s criminal history and parole 

status are inextricably intertwined such that running a 

criminal history check will, in many jurisdictions, reveal a 

person’s parole status. If anything, parole status may reveal 

more about potential danger than a criminal background 

check: a parolee has committed a serious enough crime to 

warrant prison time and has likely been released recently, 

while a criminal history check may yield a stale history of 

minor offenses committed years ago.2 

Ramirez relies on United States v. Evans to contend that 

a parole status inquiry is like an impermissible “ex-felon 

registration check” during a traffic stop. 786 F.3d at 787–88 

(holding that ex-felon registration check violates the Fourth 

Amendment). But Evans was based on the conclusion that 

whether someone complied with a procedural reporting law 

(for a crime that may have been committed years ago) does 

not “advance[] officer safety.” Id. at 787. As we explained 

in Hylton, whether “a felon is properly registered is less 

related to officer safety than whether someone is a felon at 

2 We need not decide whether Officer Buchanan’s question about

whether Ramirez was on probation runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment

because the police searched him and his car based on his parole status. 

See Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 592 (2006) (requiring causal link 

between alleged Fourth Amendment violation and the discovery of 

contested evidence). 
10 USA V. RAMIREZ

all. That’s why a felon registration check is a measure aimed 

at detecting evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.” 

Hylton, 30 F.4th at 847–48 (emphasis added) (quotation 

marks and citation omitted). In contrast, asking whether 

someone recently served prison time—like running a 

criminal background check—reasonably relates to officer 

safety. See id. 

Rodriguez also seizes on Officer Buchanan’s statement 

that he knows that parolees can be searched for any reason, 

arguing that the officer likely asked about parole status as a 

pretext to justify a search. But that possibility does not 

negate that officer safety is still a legitimate rationale for 

asking about parole status. And as in other Fourth 

Amendment contexts, the question is whether the officer’s

actions were “objectively reasonable in light of the facts and 

circumstances confronting [him], without regard to [his] 

underlying intent or motivation.” Graham v. Connor, 490 

U.S. 386, 397 (1989) (quotation marks omitted). And as 

explained earlier, it was objectively reasonable for Officer 

Buchanan to ask about Ramirez’s parole status to ensure his 

safety. We thus hold that asking someone about his parole 

status during a traffic stop does not offend the Fourth 

Amendment. 

II. Ramirez’s case must be remanded in part so that the 

district court may correct the written judgment and 

commitment. 

“When there is a discrepancy between an unambiguous 

oral pronouncement of a sentence and the written judgment, 

the oral pronouncement controls.” United States v. Fifield, 

432 F.3d 1056, 1059 n.3 (9th Cir. 2005) (citing United States 

v. Bergmann, 836 F.2d 1220, 1222 (9th Cir. 1988)). Here,

the government agrees with Ramirez that “the district court’s 
USA V. RAMIREZ 11

written judgment should be corrected to conform to its oral 

pronouncement of the sentence.” We thus remand to the 

district court so that identified discrepancies may be 

corrected. 

CONCLUSION

We AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Ramirez’s 

motion to suppress and REMAND IN PART only to permit

the district court to correct its written judgment and 

commitment so that it conforms to its oral pronouncement of 

sentence.