Opinion ID: 708850
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fidencio Ramos, Jr.

Text: 5 The district court's decision to deny Fidencio's Franks motion without an evidentiary hearing is reviewed de novo. United States v. Homick, 964 F.2d 899, 904 (9th Cir.1992). While Fidencio contends that the declarations submitted by his expert sufficiently establish that the wiretap affidavits contained knowing or reckless misrepresentations with respect to the necessity for the wiretap, we agree with the district court that his expert's declarations amounted merely to the opinion of another law enforcement officer questioning the decisions of the investigator and did not establish that any of the representations in the wiretap affidavits were knowlingly or recklessly false. The denial of Fidencio's Franks motion without a hearing was therefore proper. Franks, 438 U.S. at 171-72; see United States v. Valencia, 24 F.3d 1106, 1109 (9th Cir.1994) (stating that, in order to obtain a Franks hearing, a defendant must make a substantial preliminary showing that the affidavit contains intentionally or recklessly false statements). 6 As far as Fidencio's appeal of the district court's sentencing calculation, the district court correctly applied the rule of United States v. Alfeche, 942 F.2d 697, 698-99 (9th Cir.1991), in separating the amount of pure methamphetamine from the methamphetamine mixture for the purposes of calculating Fidencio's sentence. As Fidencio concedes, we are bound to follow Alfeche. What is more, we see nothing wrong with the Alfeche rule and thus decline his suggestion that we call for en banc reconsideration. 7 AFFIRMED.