Robles-Ponce

MEMORANDUM **

Gregorio Robles-Ponce appeals from a judgment of conviction for violation of 21 U.S.C. § 952 and § 960, entered after a conditional guilty plea reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress marijuana discovered in a border search of his 1989 Ford van at the Calexico Port of Entry.

At the hearing on Robles-Ponce’s suppression motion, no testimony was taken. The District Court ruled that, assuming all of the Defendant’s allegations of intrusiveness to be true, the non-routine border search doctrine requiring reasonable suspicion did not apply to the search of Robles-Ponce’s vehicle because it applied only to searches of a person’s body. Without making any factual findings concerning the degree of intrusiveness the search posed or the existence of reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify a non-routine search, the District Court denied the motion.

Robles-Ponce claims that United States v. Molina-Tarazon, 279 F.3d 709 (9th Cir. 2002), decided shortly after his conviction, requires that we reverse the District Court and suppress the evidence. Molinar-Tarazon involved a border search of a motor vehicle and held that non-routine border searches can…