Court Opinion

ID: 9961290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-18 16:00:51.630126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:20:32.382274
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
         FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                         No. 22-50045

                 Plaintiff-Appellee,                D.C. No.
    v.                                           8:20-cr-00134-
                                                    SVW-1
VICTOR MANUEL RAMIREZ, AKA
Pato,
                                                    OPINION
                 Defendant-Appellant.

         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 Plaintiff-
Appellee.

                         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.