United States v. Alfonso Villa Guillen

MEMORANDUM

1. The district court correctly concluded that officers lacked sufficient justification for the warrantless protective sweep of Alfonso Gerardo Villa Guillen’s apartment. The government asserts that Guillen’s suspected involvement in a large drug-trafficking organization and his refusal to reveal whether anyone was in the apartment gave officers cause to fear for their safety and to believe evidence would be imminently destroyed. But there was no evidence to suggest that anyone other than Guillen was in the apartment at the time. See United States v. Suarez, 902 F.2d 1466, 1468 (9th Cir. 1990). Therefore, even if officers did have probable cause to believe there was evidence of a crime inside the residence, there was no reasonable basis for believing that exigent circumstances existed. See id. at 1467-68 .

2. The district court did not err in denying Guillen’s motion to suppress evidence obtained by the search conducted pursuant to a warrant. Even after striking the information obtained during the improper protective sweep, see United States v. Barajas-Avalos, 377 F.3d 1040, 1054, 1058 (9th Cir. 2004), the warrant affidavit provided a sufficient factual basis to…