UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 22-10027

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 3:19-cr-00517- v. WHO-1 CHRISTIAN ALEJANDRO ESTRELLA, OPINION

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California William Horsley Orrick, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 7, 2023 San Francisco, California

Filed June 6, 2023

Before: Jay S. Bybee and Patrick J. Bumatay, Circuit Judges, and Richard D. Bennett,* Senior District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Bennett * The Honorable Richard D. Bennett, United States Senior District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation. 2 UNITED STATES V. ESTRELLA

SUMMARY**

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Christian Alejandro Estrella’s motion to suppress evidence in a case in which Estrella entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Estrella was arrested after two officers discovered a handgun concealed in his vehicle. At the time of this encounter, Estrella was a registered gang member on California state parole, and was subject to a suspicionless search condition that has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Estrella argued on appeal that the officers did not have advance knowledge that he was on parole at the time of this encounter. It is firmly established that a search of a parolee that complies with the terms of a valid search condition will usually be deemed reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. This Court has held that as a threshold requirement an officer must know of a detainee’s parole status before that person can be detained and searched pursuant to a parole condition. But the Court has yet to specifically address how precise that knowledge must be. The panel held that a law enforcement officer must have probable cause to believe that a person is on active parole before conducting a suspicionless search or seizure pursuant to a parole condition. Consistent with caselaw, and with general Fourth Amendment principles, the officer must ** 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. ESTRELLA 3

possess advance knowledge of an applicable parole condition before they may detain or search a parolee. That knowledge must be particularized enough for the officer to be aware that a parole condition applies and authorizes the encounter. However, the officer need not be absolutely certain, with ongoing day-by-day or minute-by-minute awareness of the subject’s parole status. Instead, it is sufficient for the officer to find, using the well-established rules governing probable cause, that the individual to be searched is on active parole, and an applicable parole condition authorizes the search or seizure at issue. Applying this standard, the panel concluded that the arresting officers had probable cause to believe that Estrella remained on active parole when he was detained and searched. The panel further held that this encounter did not violate California’s independent prohibition on arbitrary, capricious, or harassing searches.

COUNSEL Yevgeniy M. Parkman (argued) and Angela Chuang, Assistant Federal Public Defenders; Jodi Linker, Federal Public Defender; Federal Public Defender’s Office; San Francisco, California; for Defendant-Appellant. Molly Smolen (argued) and Kristina Green, Assistant United States Attorney