United States v. Curtis Hendrix

MEMORANDUM

Curtis Hendrix appeals from the district court’s judgment sentencing him to 360 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine base, and distribution and possession with intent to distribute cocaine base. He argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained through wiretaps, asserting that the affidavits supporting those wiretaps failed to establish the requisite necessity. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

We review a district court’s decision that a wiretap is necessary for abuse of discretion. United States v. Canales Gomez, 358 F.3d 1221, 1225 (9th Cir.2004). We have adopted a “common sense approach” in which “the reviewing court uses a standard of reasonableness to evaluate the government’s good faith effort to use alternative investigative means or its failure to do so because of danger or low probability of success.” Id. (quoting United States v. Blackmon, 273 F.3d 1204, 1207 (9th Cir. 2001)). Although a wiretap “should not ordinarily be the initial step in the investigation,” law enforcement officials “need not exhaust every conceivable alternative before obtaining…