UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS December 15, 2023

Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. No. 23-6071

ISAAC MANUEL RAMOS,

Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. 5:22-CR-00180-JD-1) _________________________________

Shira Kieval, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Virginia L. Grady, Federal Public Defender, with her on the briefs), Denver, Colorado, for Defendant – Appellant.

Wilson D. McGarry, Assistant United States Attorney (Robert J. Troester, United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff – Appellee. _________________________________

Before BACHARACH, BALDOCK, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. _________________________________

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. _________________________________

I. INTRODUCTION

Frederick Police Department (“FPD”) Officer Jose Puentes arrested Isaac

Ramos and impounded Ramos’s truck. In anticipation of the truck’s impoundment,

Puentes conducted an inventory search. That search revealed the presence of a Appellate Case: 23-6071 Document: 010110969290 Date Filed: 12/15/2023 Page: 2

machine gun and ammunition. A federal grand jury issued a two-count indictment

charging Ramos with unlawful possession of a machine gun, in violation of

18 U.S.C. § 922(o), and being a felon illegally in possession of ammunition, in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Ramos moved to suppress the machine gun and

ammunition, asserting the impoundment of his truck violated the Fourth Amendment

because it was not consistent with standardized policy and not supported by a

reasonable, non-pretextual community-caretaking rationale. After the district court

denied his motion to suppress, Ramos entered a conditional guilty plea to the

unlawful-possession-of-a-machine-gun charge. Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2). On appeal,

Ramos claims the district court erred in refusing to suppress the machine gun as the

product of an illegal search, reasserting the arguments he made in the district court.

This court exercises jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and reverses the

denial of Ramos’s suppression motion. We need not resolve whether the

impoundment of Ramos’s truck was consistent with FPD policy. Instead, it is

sufficient to conclude impoundment was not supported by a reasonable, non-

pretextual community-caretaking rationale. United States v. Sanders, 796 F.3d 1241,

1243 (10th Cir. 2015) (holding that to be valid under the community-caretaking

doctrine, an impoundment must be both consistent with standardized policy and

supported by a valid community-caretaking rationale). The matter is remanded to the

district court to grant Ramos’s suppression motion and to conduct any further

necessary proceedings.

2 Appellate Case: 23-6071 Document: 010110969290 Date Filed: 12/15/2023 Page: 3

II. BACKGROUND

A. Legal Background

The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their

. . . effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV.

Vehicles are effects that fall within the Fourth Amendment’s protection. Coolidge v.

New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 461 (1971) (“The word ‘automobile’ is not a talisman

in whose pres

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