United States v. Richard Sanders

Richard Sanders appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence and the district court’s sentencing determination. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

1. The district court did not err in denying Sanders’s motion to suppress evidence of guns found at his residence during the execution of the search warrant. See United States v. Battershell, 457 F.3d 1048, 1050 (9th Cir.2006) (reviewing denial of a motion to suppress evidence de novo). The search warrant was based on Morgan Kamelin’s in-person tip about events that she witnessed. In addition to relying on Kamelin’s status as a citizen informant lacking any apparent motive to lie, Deputy Shawn Lesnik verified her tip by testing her memory of the earlier assault against his own. The totality of the circumstances thus provided both sufficient reliability and a basis of knowledge to support “a fair probability” that Sanders had engaged in witness tampering. See United States v. Garcia-Villalba, 585 F.3d 1223, 1233 (9th Cir.2009) (“Probable cause means only a fair probability, not certainty, and requires consideration of the totality of the circumstances.”) (internal quotation marks…