United States v. Xzavione Taylor

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMarch 1, 2023
Docket21-10377
StatusPublished

This text of United States v. Xzavione Taylor (United States v. Xzavione Taylor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Xzavione Taylor, (9th Cir. 2023).

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 21-10377

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:20-cr- 00204-GMN- v. EJY-1

XZAVIONE TAYLOR, OPINION Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada Gloria M. Navarro, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted December 7, 2022 San Francisco, California

Filed March 1, 2023

Before: Daniel A. Bress and Lawrence VanDyke, Circuit Judges, and Jane A. Restani, * Judge.

Opinion by Judge Bress

* The Honorable Jane A. Restani, Judge for the United States Court of International Trade, sitting by designation. 2 UNITED STATES V. TAYLOR

SUMMARY **

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence discovered following a traffic stop, and remanded for the district court to conform the written judgment to its oral pronouncement of sentence, in a case in which Xzavione Taylor entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The panel held that the officers did not unreasonably prolong the traffic stop. The panel wrote: • An officer’s asking Taylor two questions about weapons early in the counter—once before the officer learned that Taylor was on federal supervision for being a felon in possession and once after—was a negligibly burdensome precaution that the officer could reasonably take in the name of safety. • An officer did not unlawfully prolong the traffic stop when he asked Taylor to exit the vehicle. • The officers’ subjective motivations are irrelevant because the Fourth Amendment’s concern with reasonableness allows certain actions to be taking in certain circumstances, whatever the subjective intent. • A criminal history check and the officers’ other actions while Taylor was outside the car were within the lawful scope of the traffic stop.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. UNITED STATES V. TAYLOR 3

• Even if, contrary to precedent, the frisk and criminal history check were beyond the original mission of the traffic stop, they were still permissible based on the officers’ reasonable suspicion of an independent offense: Taylor’s unlawful possession of a gun. As to whether the officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they searched Taylor’s car, the panel held that the district court did not err in finding that Taylor unequivocally and specifically consented to a search of the car for firearms. Taylor conceded that precedent forecloses his constitutional challenge to a risk-notification condition of supervised release. The panel remanded for the district court to conform the written judgment to its oral pronouncement of conditions concerning outpatient substance abuse treatment and vocational services programs.

COUNSEL

Aarin E. Kevorkian (argued) and Raquel Lazo, Assistant Federal Public Defenders; Rene L. Valladares, Federal Public Defender; Federal Public Defender’s Office; Las Vegas, Nevada; Erin Michelle Gettel, Snell & Wilmer, Las Vegas, Nevada; for Defendant-Appellant. Peter H. Walkingshaw (argued), James Alexander Blum, and Robert Lawrence Ellman, Assistant United States Attorneys; Elizabeth O. White, Appellate Chief; James M. Frierson, United States Attorney; Office of the United States Attorney, District of Nevada; Reno, Nevada; for Plaintiff-Appellee. 4 UNITED STATES V. TAYLOR

OPINION

BRESS, Circuit Judge:

Police stopped Xzavione Taylor for a traffic violation, which led to the discovery of a firearm that Taylor, a convicted felon, could not lawfully possess. We hold that the officers did not unreasonably prolong the stop and that Taylor voluntarily consented to the search of his car. We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of Taylor’s motion to suppress. But on one aspect of Taylor’s supervised release, we remand for the district court to conform its written judgment to the court’s oral pronouncement of Taylor’s sentence. I On July 10, 2020, Officers Anthony Gariano and Brandon Alvarado were patrolling in Northeast Las Vegas when they spotted a car with no license plate or temporary registration tags. The events that followed were recorded on the officers’ body-worn cameras. Gariano and Alvarado stopped the driver, Xzavione Taylor, who had no driver’s license or other means of identification. When Gariano asked Taylor if he knew why police had pulled him over, Taylor said that he did, explaining that he had just acquired the vehicle from his aunt. As part of his standard questioning during traffic stops, Gariano asked Taylor whether the vehicle contained any “guns/knives/drugs,” which Taylor denied. In response to Gariano’s inquiry whether Taylor had ever been arrested before, including for “anything crazy, anything violent,” Taylor stated that he was on parole (i.e., federal supervision) for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Taylor also UNITED STATES V. TAYLOR 5

provided Gariano his name, Social Security number, and date of birth. Gariano later confirmed in his testimony that “everything changed” when he learned that Taylor had been convicted for being a felon in possession because Gariano became concerned that Taylor might be armed. Gariano asked Taylor if he was in violation of his supervision conditions or if he had weapons on him, which Taylor again denied. About a minute and thirty seconds into their conversation, Gariano asked Taylor to step out of the car. Taylor complied. Until that point, it is not clear how much the officers could see of Taylor’s person. Gariano’s bodycam footage showed that, at a minimum, Gariano likely could see a red strap on Taylor’s left shoulder while Taylor remained seated in his car. Once Taylor emerged from the car, however, it became obvious that he was wearing a distinctive unzipped red fanny pack slung across his upper body. The unzipped fanny pack appeared to be light and empty. Gariano asked Taylor to remove the fanny pack, and, in the process, Gariano touched, slightly opened, and lifted the pack. Both officers later explained that the empty fanny pack aroused their suspicions. Alvarado testified that “it’s known that’s where subjects primarily sometimes conceal weapons.” Gariano similarly testified that “we’ve been seeing an . . . uptick of people concealing firearms in fanny packs that are slung around their body,” and that he “just wanted to make sure that there [were] no weapons on his person at that point.” Alvarado chatted with Taylor and pat-frisked him. The two recognized each other because Alvarado had been a correctional officer at the prison where Taylor was 6 UNITED STATES V. TAYLOR

previously incarcerated. As the district court described, the interaction was “calm” and, in fact, “friendly.” Gariano, meanwhile, returned to his patrol car and ran a criminal history check on Taylor, which would also allow him to verify Taylor’s identity. By the time Gariano returned to his patrol car to initiate this computerized check, Taylor had been stopped for around three minutes and had been outside his vehicle for approximately 40 seconds. From his records check, Gariano learned that Taylor had at least two previous felony convictions for grand larceny and robbery. Gariano exited his patrol car and asked Taylor for consent to search his vehicle. The conversation went as follows:

GARIANO: Is there anything in the car? TAYLOR: No, no I just got it from my aunt. GARIANO: No guns? TAYLOR: No, sir. GARIANO: Alright, cool if we check? TAYLOR: It don’t matter, I just got it, I just got it, it don’t matter to me.

Gariano searched Taylor’s car for less than a minute and found a handgun under the driver’s seat. Alvarado then placed Taylor under arrest. Taylor received Miranda warnings.

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United States v. Xzavione Taylor, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-xzavione-taylor-ca9-2023.