United States v. Bradford

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: May 22, 2025
• Docket: 24-3785
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 22 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-3785 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 9:23-cr-00049-DWM-1 v. MEMORANDUM* CALLEN JOSEPH BRADFORD,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Montana Donald W. Molloy, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted May 20, 2025** Seattle, Washington

Before: GOULD, TALLMAN, and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges.

Appellant Callen Bradford appeals the denial of his motion to suppress drugs

seized from the vehicle he was driving after a traffic stop and ensuing search.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Officer Casey Couture pulled Bradford

* 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). over in Lake County, Montana, for driving a vehicle with expired registration.

While waiting for dispatch to return information on Bradford’s driver’s license,

Officer Couture discovered that Bradford was on parole in Cascade County.

Officer Couture asked Bradford if he had a travel permit from his parole officer

granting permission to leave that area; Bradford said he did not. Officer Couture

called Probation and Parole to ask how they wanted to proceed. Immediately after

ending that call, Officer Couture asked Bradford if officers could search the

vehicle, and Bradford consented. Lake County Sherriff’s Detective Sciaretta, who

was assisting with the stop, found a glass pipe in the center console. The officers

detained Bradford, and after being Mirandized, he admitted to having one pound of

methamphetamine in the vehicle, which officers seized.

On appeal, Bradford argues that his roadside detention exceeded

constitutional parameters in duration and scope, and that his consent to search the

vehicle was not valid because it was coerced by officers’ insinuation that a parole

search was inevitable. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm the

district court’s denial of the motion to suppress.

1. The district court correctly held that officers lawfully extended the

traffic stop when they discovered, during the regular “mission” of the stop, that

Bradford was on parole in Cascade County. Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S.

348, 354–56 (2015). The district court correctly concluded that Officer Couture’s

2 24-3785 search of Montana’s correctional offender database did not unlawfully prolong the

stop because it occurred while Couture was completing the ordinary tasks of the

traffic stop—waiting on a return of driver and vehicle information from dispatch.

United States v. Ramirez, 98 F.4th 1141, 1144–45 (9th Cir. 2024), cert. denied, No.

24-6080, 2025 WL 76687 (U.S. Jan. 13, 2025) (citing Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 356).

The district court also correctly determined that the officers’ discovery that Bradford

was on parole and traveling outside of Cascade County without a travel permit gave

them independent reasonable suspicion to suspect parole violations and to extend

the stop by contacting a parole officer. See United States v. Landeros, 913 F.3d 862,

867 (9th Cir. 2019).

2. The district court did not clearly err in finding Bradford’s consent

voluntary. United States v. Patayan Soriano, 361 F.3d 494, 501 (9th Cir. 2004).

Bradford was not in custody when he gave consent to search the vehicle, so

Miranda warnings were not required. United States v. Taylor, 60 F.4th 1233, 1243

(9th Cir. 2023), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 828 (2024) (quoting United States v.

Basher, 629 F.3d 1161, 1167–68 (9th Cir. 2011)). The tone of the stop was calm,

casual, and “could even be described as friendly.” Id. Officers never drew their

weapons or engaged in any intimidating behavior. See id. Those facts suggest

Bradford’s consent was voluntary. Id.; see also Basher, 629 F.3d at 1168.

The district court correctly concluded that, when considering the totality of

3 24-3785 the circumstances, the sequence of events was not sufficiently coercive to vitiate

Bradford’s consent. Nearly six minutes before obtaining Bradford’s consent,

Detective Sciaretta had mentioned the officers could obtain the probation officer’s

permission to search—not that they had obtained permission already. Contra

Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 549–50 (1968) (officers announced they

had a search warrant, then homeowner gave consent). He was not told the

probation officer had authorized a search until after narcotics paraphernalia had

been found during the consent search.

Based on these facts, we cannot say the district court clearly erred by finding

that Bradford’s consent to search the vehicle was voluntary.1 See Patayan Soriano,

361 F.3d at 503 (citing United States v. Garcia, 135 F.3d 667, 671 (9th Cir. 1998)

(“Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice

between them cannot be clearly erroneous.”)).

AFFIRMED.

1 The district court also found that Bradford’s Mirandized admission to Detective Sciaretta that he had a pound of methamphetamine in the vehicle was made voluntarily. Because Bradford does not challenge the voluntariness or admissibility of that admission on appeal, we do not address it.

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