United States v. Vantiger

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: September 24, 2024
• Docket: 23-2100
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION SEP 24 2024 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 23-2100

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 4:20-cr-06010-SAB

v. MEMORANDUM* MICHAEL LEE VANTIGER,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington Stanley A. Bastian, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted September 13, 2024** Seattle, Washington

Before: W. FLETCHER and SUNG, Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF,*** District Judge.

* 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). *** The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. Defendant-Appellant Michael Lee Vantiger appeals from his criminal

conviction. He challenges the denial of his motion to suppress evidence and

statements obtained during a traffic stop and subsequent search of a car in which he

was a passenger. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We may “affirm

the district court’s judgment on any ground the record supports.” United States v.

Craighead, 539 F.3d 1073, 1080 n.2 (9th Cir. 2008). We affirm.

The traffic stop was supported by reasonable suspicion. The informant

interviews, Vantiger’s gambling records, evidence obtained from the investigation

of Vantiger’s social media accounts, and the ping data showing his route to and

from Los Angeles gave the officers a “particularized and objective basis for

suspecting [Vantiger] of criminal activity.” United States v. Palos-Marquez, 591

F.3d 1272, 1275 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States v. Berber-Tinoco, 510 F.3d

1083, 1087 (9th Cir. 2007)).

The evidence from the informant interviews was not stale at the time of the

stop. “[G]reater lapses of time are permitted” when the evidence “is of an ongoing

criminal business of a necessarily long-term nature,” United States v. Greany, 929

F.2d 523, 525 (9th Cir.1991), and the period of time between the informants’

statements and the stop in this case was shorter than gaps we have previously

approved, see United States v. Pitts, 6 F.3d 1366, 1369–70 (9th Cir. 1993).

2 Vantiger claims that the police officers’ use of a ruse during the stop was

unreasonable. Citing United States v. Magallon-Lopez, 817 F.3d 671, 675 (9th Cir.

2016), the Government argues categorically, and incorrectly, that police officers’

“use of a ruse when conducting an investigatory stop ‘does not call into question

the legality of the stop’” if the stop is supported by reasonable suspicion. “‘An

otherwise lawful seizure can violate the Fourth Amendment if it is executed in an

unreasonable manner,’ including if it is executed by means of an unreasonable

ruse.” United States v. Ramirez, 976 F.3d 946, 952 (9th Cir. 2020) (citation

omitted) (quoting United States v. Alverez-Tejeda, 491 F.3d 1013, 1016 (9th Cir.

2007)). However, the ruse that the officers used to separate Vantiger and the driver

for questioning—telling him that they had received a report of domestic

violence—was reasonable and did not make the questioning unlawful. The

intrusion in this case was considerably milder than the intrusion we found

reasonable in Alverez-Tejeda. See Alverez-Tejeda, 491 F.3d at 1017–18.

Assuming Vantiger is correct that the K9 alerts were unreliable, we

nonetheless conclude that the search warrant was supported by probable cause.

Vantiger has not shown that “the affidavit purged of those falsities . . . would not

be sufficient to support a finding of probable cause.” United States v. Fowlkes,

3 804 F.3d 954, 969 (9th Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v. Stanert, 762 F.2d 775,

782 (9th Cir. 1985)).

AFFIRMED.