1 NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff

- Appellee,

v.
DIANGELO JOHNSON AKA DiAngelo Keith Johnson , Defendant

- Appellant. Nos. 17

- 50315, 17

- 50316
D.C. Nos. 12CR0623

- LAB, 17CR1213LAB

MEMORANDUM *

Appeal from the United State s District Court for the Southern District of California The Honorable Larry Alan Burns, Presiding
Submitted February 7 , 2019 ** Pasadena, California
Before: WARDLAW and BEA, Circuit Judges, and MURPHY, *** District Judge. After a jury trial on May 23, 2017, DiAngelo Johnson was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). He was also

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36

- 3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

*** The Honorable Stephen J. Murphy, III, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designatio n. 

# FILED

FEB 12 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLER K U.S. COURT OF APPEAL S2

charged with violating the terms of his supervised release. The district court
sentenced him to 90 months ’ imprisonment on the felon in possession charge , and
12 months ’ imprisonment for violating the terms of his supervised release. Johnson timely appealed. Fed. R. A pp. P. 4(b)(1). Jurisdiction is proper under 28 U.S.C. §
1291.
I.
We review the district court ’ s decision not to recuse itself for abuse of
discretion. See United States v. Silver , 245 F.3d 1075, 1078 (9th Cir. 2001). In 2012, when sentencing Johnson for a prior felon in possession conviction, the district c ourt explained the conditions of supervised release , noted that Johnson could not possess guns or ammunition , and warned : “ If you come back here with another gun, it ’ ll be Katy bar the door. I am going to put you away for a long time. Don ’ t do that

. ” At the recusal hearing in this case , the district court explained that his 2012 comments were

meant to underline the consequences of violating the conditions of supervise d
release. Because those comments “ did not reveal such a high degree of favoritism or antagonism as t o make fair judgment impossible, ” they did not require the district court to recuse himself at his later trial, and the district court’s failure to do so was

not an abuse of discretion

. United States v. Wilkerson , 208 F.3d 794, 797

– 98 (9th Cir.2000).3 II.
We review de novo the district court ’ s ruling on a motion to suppress ; we
review the district court’s underlying factual findings for clear error. See United
States v. Turvin , 517 F.3d 1097, 1099 (9th Cir. 2008). Police seized the firearm at
issue in this case during a traffic stop that police conducted after noticing Johnson’s vehicle had a suspended registration

. According to body

- camera footage of the traffic stop , p olice ran Johnson’s name through their system and discovered
that there was an active warrant for his arrest within minutes of pulling him over

. Police then asked Johnson to step out of the vehicle , and discovered a firearm in
his jacket during a search incident to his arrest on the outstanding warrant

. T he traffic stop based on the vehicle’s suspended registration was reasonable
under the Fourth Amendment , Whren v. United States , 517 U.S. 806, 819 (1996 ) , and t he outstanding warrant check was an ordinary inquiry incident to that stop. Rodriguez v. United States , 135 S. Ct. 1609, 1616 (2015); United States v. Garcia , 205 F.3d 1182, 1187 (9th Cir. 2000). Further, t he warrant check did not measurably extend the stop. See Rodriguez , 135 S. Ct. at 161 4 . After discovering the outstanding arrest warrant, officers properly searched Johnson and discovered
the firearm. The district court therefore properly denied Johnson ’ s motion to

suppres s.4 III. Finally, w e review the district court ’ s decision to limit the scope of cross
examination for abuse of discretion. United States v. Lo , 231 F.3d 471, 482 (9th Cir. 2000). At trial t he government offered a firearm s expert who testified on the issue of whether the firearm in question had previously traveled in interstate

commerce. He testified that the fir earm was a “Ruger” brand weapon, and that Ruger has never had any manufact uring facilities in California

— which he
determined by consul ting a “reference collection” of books on firearms
manufacturers. H e concluded that the firearm at issue must have traveled across
state lines before arriving in California. On cross

- examination, defense counsel
confirmed that one of the sources the expert used to determine Ruger’s
manufa cturing locations was a book called “Ruger and His Guns, a History of the Man, the Company, and Their Firearms,” written by RL Wilson. Defense counsel then attempted to introduce evidence that the author of that book had been convicted of wire fraud in 2005. The district court sustained objections to this line of questioning based on relevance and Federal Rule of Evidence 403. The expert clarified that the part of “Ruger and His Guns” that he relied on was a serializatio n
table located in the back of the book showing when Ruger manufactured certain
firearms , which was compiled by Ruger, not the book’s author. Given how little bearing the questions had on whether the expert correctly identified the firearm as5

a Ruger, whet her Ruger had any manufacturing facilities in California, or whether
the firearm had travelled in interstate commerce , see Fed. R. Evid. 401

— and given the outsized potential for prejudice, confusion, and waste of time , see Fed. R. Evid.
403

— t he district co urt did not abuse its discretion in sustaining objections to the questions about the criminal history of the author of one of the book s in the
expert ’ s reference collection

. AFFIRMED.