NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT FEB 22 2011
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 10-50004
Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 2:08-cr-01214-VBF-1
v.
MEMORANDUM *
EDDIE CHAVEZ,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Valerie Baker Fairbank, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted February 17, 2011 **
Pasadena, California
Before: RYMER and BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and QUIST, Senior District
Judge.***
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Gordon J. Quist, Senior District Judge for the U.S.
District Court for Western Michigan, Grand Rapids, sitting by designation.
Eddie Chavez appeals his conviction for being a felon in possession of
ammunition. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Chavez contends that the district court should
have suppressed the evidence against him as the fruit of an illegal search.
Although the terms of Chavez’s parole permit the Government to perform
warrantless searches of his residence, Chavez argues that there was no probable
cause to believe that he resided at the searched apartment.
We review the district court’s suppression order de novo and review its
findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Song Ja Cha, 597 F.3d 995, 999
(9th Cir. 2010).
Chavez claims that the district court’s findings of fact are clearly erroneous.
But “[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s
choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer
City, 470 U.S. 564, 573–74 (1985). Here, the district court permissibly believed
the prosecution’s witnesses and declined to adopt the defense’s version of events.
This is not clearly erroneous.
As to the search, we have held that “law enforcement officers must have
probable cause to believe that the parolee is a resident of the house to be searched.”
Motley v. Parks, 432 F.3d 1072, 1080 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). To satisfy this
“stringent” probable cause requirement, “the facts known to the officers at the time
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of the search must have been sufficient to support a belief, in ‘a man of reasonable
caution,’ that” Chavez lived in Apartment 27. United States v. Howard, 447 F.3d
1257, 1262 (9th Cir. 2006).
Based on the facts known to Chavez’s parole agent, there was probable
cause to believe Chavez resided at the searched apartment. Chavez’s girlfriend
stated that they lived in the searched apartment, and Chavez told his parole agent
that he had meant to update his contact information to reflect this fact. Chavez did
not object when the agent updated it for him. Chavez’s previous co-resident, his
sister, also confirmed that he had moved out of his old residence and into the
searched apartment. Furthermore, Chavez slept in the apartment’s bedroom, called
it “his” bedroom, initially walked out of the bedroom in a state of undress, and was
found in the apartment on consecutive days. We reject Chavez’s argument that,
despite these numerous admissions and corroborative actions, the Government
needed “some additional objective observation” that Chavez lived at the searched
apartment. The district court properly denied the suppression motion.
AFFIRMED.
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