Shorts

MEMORANDUM **

The district court properly denied Shorts’s motion to suppress. The warrantless search of the hotel room was justified by exigent circumstances that would lead a reasonable officer to believe that entry was necessary to prevent the destruction of relevant evidence. See United *733 States v. Gooch, 6 F.3d 673, 679 (9th Cir. 1993). Shorts’s contention that the officers should have instead placed a block on incoming phone calls lacks merit. Such a block would not have prevented Johnson from contacting Shorts by cell phone, nor does it make sense to require officers to investigate the feasibility of such phone blocks when time is of the essence. Nothing in the record suggests that the officers created the exigent circumstances.

There is sufficient evidence to support a conviction. The government presented testimony that Shorts was seen bagging drugs with another person, and that Shorts was observed flushing drugs down a toilet. Drugs were also uncovered in a subsequent search of the hotel room. Other drugs were on a table in plain view. A rational trier of fact could conclude that Shorts participated in a conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and that he…