United States v. Horacio Mancilla

481 F. App'x 350

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: September 21, 2012
• Docket: 11-30366
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

MEMORANDUM **

Horacio Mancilla appeals the district court’s order denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained from what Mancil-la claimed was an unlawful stop of the vehicle in which he was riding. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review questions of law de novo and findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Sandoval, 390 F.3d 1077, 1080 (9th Cir.2004). We affirm the district court.

The record indicates that the facts known to the officers who stopped Mancil-la’s vehicle, when combined with reasonable inferences, were sufficient to create reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle. See United States v. Hartz, 458 F.3d 1011, 1017 (9th Cir.2006) (“Reasonable suspicion exists if ‘specific, articulable facts ... together with objective and reasonable inferences’ suggest that the persons detained by the police are engaged in criminal activity.” (alteration in original)). The model, color, and number of occupants in the stopped vehicle closely, though not perfectly, matched the reporting party’s description of the vehicle chasing her. It was reasonable for the district court to infer that, in a small rural town like Sunnyside, Washington, it is unlikely that officers would see more than a few vehicles in reasonable proximity to the predicted area of travel at 1:00 a.m., and even less likely that there would be more than one vehicle that matched the reporting party’s description. See United States v. Berber-Tinoco, 510 F.3d 1083, 1091 (9th Cir.2007) (“[T]he judge’s statement that there would be little traffic on the road at 10:30 at night could be reasonably inferred from the officers’ testimony-”). That this is so is evidenced by Officer Hernandez’s statement in his police report that Mancil-la’s vehicle was “the only silver car around.” Accordingly, we agree with the district court that the police had a lawful basis to stop the defendant’s vehicle.

AFFIRMED.

** This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.