United States of America v. Jody Demar Fontenot

* 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).
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JODY DEMAR FONTENOT,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 11-10368
D.C. No. 3:10-cr-00778-RS-1
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Richard Seeborg, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted June 13, 2012 **
San Francisco, California
Before: GOULD, TALLMAN, and BEA, Circuit Judges.
Jody Fontenot appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for
suppression of evidence and his subsequent conviction, following a bench trial, for
having violated 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which prohibits felons’ possession of
FILED
JUN 15 2012
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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firearms. The parties are familiar with the facts underlying the appeal and thus we
do not include them save as necessary. We affirm.
A police officer may detain an individual to conduct an investigatory frisk
consistent with the Fourth Amendment if the officer has “a reasonable articulable
suspicion that [the individual] pose[s] a threat to his safety or the safety of
others . . . .” United States v. Terry-Crespo, 356 F.3d 1170, 1173 (9th Cir. 2004)
(citing United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989)); see also Terry v. Ohio, 392
U.S. 1 (1968). Here, the police had a reasonable articulable suspicion that
Fontenot posed a threat to the safety of others. The police had received a high
priority 9-1-1 dispatch that, in the parking lot of a liquor store on the corner of
Geneva Avenue and Santos Street in San Francisco, there was a group of “guys” in
front of the store and one of them was pulling out a gun. On arrival four minutes
after the 9-1-1 call was made, the police saw only one group in the parking lot, a
group of three males, one of whom was Fontenot. This met the requirement of
“‘some minimal level of objective justification’ for making the stop.” United
States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (quoting INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210,
217 (1984)). Further, as discussed by the district court in its opinion below, the 9-
1-1 dispatch and the police had received an emergency call from a cell phone with
the phone number identified; this “provided the police with sufficient indicia of

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reliability prior to the Terry stop to justify reliance on [the call.]” Terry-Crespo,
356 F.3d at 1174 (referring to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1), because it removed a
good deal of the anonymity of the call.
AFFIRMED.

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