United States v. Alfaro

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: February 26, 2024
• Docket: 22-3214
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

22-3214 United States v. Alfaro

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

1 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the 2 Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 3 26th day of February, two thousand twenty-four. 4 5 Present: 6 DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, 7 Chief Judge, 8 GERARD E. LYNCH, 9 BETH ROBINSON, 10 Circuit Judges. 11 _____________________________________ 12 13 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 14 15 Appellee, 16 17 v. 22-3214 18 19 ALBERTO ALFARO, 20 21 Defendant-Appellant. 22 _____________________________________ 23 24 For Appellee: TIFFANY H. LEE, Assistant United States Attorney, for 25 Trini E. Ross, United States Attorney for the Western 26 District of New York, Buffalo, NY. 27 28 For Defendant-Appellant: ROBERT W. WOOD, Law Office of Robert W. Wood, 29 Rochester, NY.

1 Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New

York (Wolford, J.).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Defendant-Appellant Alberto Alfaro appeals from a judgment of the United States District

Court for the Western District of New York (Wolford, J.), entered December 22, 2022, convicting

him, after a jury trial, of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in violation of

18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2), and sentencing him principally to 48 months’ imprisonment.

Following a prior conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin, Alfaro was

on supervised release under the supervision of U.S. Probation Officer Joseph Curran at the time of

the instant offense. As part of his supervised release, Alfaro agreed to the following special

condition: “[Alfaro] shall submit to a search of his person, property, vehicle, place of residence or

any other property under his control, based upon reasonable suspicion, and permit confiscation of

any evidence or contraband discovered.” SPA-5.

Curran received a tip from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent,

Malcolm Van Alstyne, relaying information from a confidential informant that Alfaro possessed

firearms and drugs inside his residence. Van Alstyne subsequently showed Curran photos from

the confidential informant depicting a rifle, handgun, and prescription pill bottle bearing Alfaro’s

name, which Curran recognized were located in Alfaro’s bathroom.

Based on that information, Curran submitted a search plan to verify Alfaro’s compliance

with his conditions of supervision. Alfaro’s residence was searched on November 13, 2020.

During the search, probation officers found the following items behind a panel in the bathroom:

(1) an empty rifle bag; (2) a bag containing an unknown white powdery substance, which the

2 parties stipulated was not a controlled substance; (3) a black plastic bag containing small plastic

baggies; (4) rubber bands and digital scales; and (5) a gun containing six rounds of ammunition

that was rusted around the cylinder area. In addition, probation officers discovered two rounds

of ammunition in a panel immediately outside the bathroom and a rifle scope in a kitchen cabinet.

Alfaro was subsequently indicted on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and

ammunition.

Before trial, Alfaro moved to suppress the evidence seized from his home on Fourth

Amendment grounds. Alfaro separately moved in limine to challenge the admissibility at trial of

the drug paraphernalia and rifle scope pursuant to the Federal Rules of Evidence. The district

court denied both motions and Alfaro challenges both rulings on appeal. We assume the parties’

familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal,

which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

I. Motion to Suppress

Ordinarily, the Fourth Amendment requires authorities to obtain a warrant supported by

probable cause in order to search an individual’s home. See United States v. Julius, 610 F.3d 60,

64 (2d Cir. 2010) (citing Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987)). An exception to that

requirement exists, however, “where an administrative agency has ‘special needs, beyond the

normal need for law enforcement.’” United States v. Reyes, 283 F.3d 446, 461 (2d Cir. 2002)

(quoting Griffin, 483 U.S. at 873). The government’s operation of a system of post-incarceration

supervision presents such “special needs,” id., so that “the probable cause requirements of the

Fourth Amendment . . . simply do not apply” in this context, id. at 462. And this exception is

applicable to individuals, such as Alfaro, when serving a term of federal supervised release. See

Griffin, 483 U.S. at 875–76.

3 Alfaro does not challenge these general precepts. Instead, he argues that Curran lacked

reasonable suspicion to search Alfaro’s home, as required in the special condition of Alfaro’s

supervised release. The district court determined that even in the absence of reasonable

suspicion, the search here could be upheld pursuant to the special needs doctrine as “reasonably

related to the performance of the [probation] officer’s duties.” United States v. Braggs, 5 F.4th

183, 184 (2d Cir. 2021). Alfaro argues that this determination constituted legal error.

We need not reach question. While we review the district court’s factual findings for

clear error and its legal conclusions de novo, see United States v. Aguiar, 737 F.3d 251, 255 (2d

Cir. 2013), we may affirm on any ground supported by the record, see United States v. Peters, 732

F.3d 93, 103 n.3 (2d Cir. 2013). And here, we conclude that Curran had ample reasonable

suspicion to conduct the search of Alfaro’s home.

Under the reasonable suspicion standard, we “look to the totality of the circumstances to

determine whether the officer had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal

wrongdoing.” United States v. Chandler, 56 F.4th 27, 42 (2d Cir. 2022) (internal quotation marks

and citation omitted). A “mere hunch” is insufficient, but “the likelihood of criminal activity

need not rise to the level required for probable cause, and it falls considerably short of satisfying

a preponderance of the evidence standard.” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 274 (2002)

(internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

Here, Curran had reasonable suspicion to search Alfaro’s residence based on the

confidential informant’s report to Van Alstyne that Alfaro had firearms and drugs inside his

residence, as well as the photographs depicting firearms in a location that Curran recognized from

prior visits as Alfaro’s bathroom. Alfaro was on supervised release in connection with his prior

conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin, and this information, in its

4 totality, suggested that he was violating the terms of his release, see United States v. Lajeunesse,

85 F.4th 679, 687–88 (2d Cir. 2023), which prohibited ownership or possession of firearms and

ammunition as well as drug use.

Having received specific and corroborated information from law enforcement officials that

reasonably suggested contraband might be found in Alfaro’s home, Curran had ample reasonable

suspicion to search Alfaro’s home to ascertain whether Alfaro was violating the terms of his

supervised release. See Chandler, 56 F.4th at 30 (affirming the district court’s denial of a

suppression motion because the probation officer “had reasonable suspicion to search [the

defendant’s] residence . . . based on credible and specific reports that [the defendant], a felon and

on supervised release, unlawfully possessed a firearm”). Accordingly, we uphold the district

court’s denial of the motion to suppress the evidence recovered from Alfaro’s residence on this

alternative ground.

II. Motion in Limine

Alfaro also challenges the district court’s denial of his motion in limine to exclude the drug

paraphernalia and the rifle scope from evidence. A district court’s evidentiary rulings are

reviewed “under a deferential abuse of discretion standard” and will be disturbed “only where the

decision to admit or exclude evidence was manifestly erroneous.” United States v. Williams, 930

F.3d 44, 58 (2d Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Alfaro has

demonstrated no such abuse of discretion here.

“To be relevant, evidence need only tend to prove the government’s case, and evidence

that adds context and dimension to the government’s proof of the charges can have that tendency.”

United States v. Gonzalez, 110 F.3d 936, 941 (2d Cir. 1997). As such, evidence that “provide[s]

background for the events alleged in the indictment” or “enable[s] the jury to understand the

5 complete story of the crimes charged” is generally admissible. United States v. Williams, 585

F.3d 703, 707 (2d Cir. 2009) (internal citation omitted).

Under this standard, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the

challenged evidence. At trial, Alfaro disputed whether he knowingly possessed the firearm and

ammunition, arguing to the jury that the firearm could have belonged to a prior resident given its

rusty and corroded nature. The government argued, in contrast, that the totality of the evidence,

including the drug paraphernalia and rifle scope, suggested a pattern of behavior undercutting this

theory.

The condition of the drug-related evidence, in particular, supported the government’s

argument that the firearm and ammunition belonged to Alfaro. Specifically, the government

elicited testimony from a probation officer that there were no cobwebs or dust on the plastic bag,

suggesting that it did not “appear . . . [to have] been there for a long period of time.” A-329.

Another probation officer similarly testified that “[t]he outside layer of the [white] powder

appeared to have condensation on it,” A-496, and yet another officer testified that the rubber bands

“appear[ed] fresh” during the search, A-519. This testimony allowed the government to argue in

summation that the drug paraphernalia—and by extension, the firearm and ammunition—were

placed in the apartment during Alfaro’s tenancy. Likewise, evidence that the rifle scope was

found in a cabinet in Alfaro’s apartment was potentially probative of Alfaro’s knowledge and

possession of the firearm and ammunition.

In sum, we conclude that the challenged evidence was relevant to whether Alfaro

“knowingly possessed the firearm” and ammunition and was not unfairly prejudicial. United

States v. Hayes, 811 F. App’x 30, 36 (2d Cir. 2020) (summary order); see also United States v.

Goodwin, 96 F. App’x 13, 14 (2d Cir. 2004) (summary order) (concluding that the district court

6 did not abuse its discretion “in allowing the government to present evidence of [the defendant’s]

drug activity in [a] separate jury trial for possession of a firearm” because that evidence “provided

the jury with both factual context and motive for the gun possession, the latter of which [the

defendant] contested”); United States v. Butler, 594 F.3d 955, 963–64 (8th Cir. 2010) (holding that

“evidence concerning drug transactions” involving the defendant was properly admitted because

it was “closely and integrally related to the issue of ownership and possession of firearms”)

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In such circumstances, Alfaro can point to no

persuasive basis for its exclusion. The district court did not abuse its discretion.

* * *

We have considered Alfaro’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit.

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk