United States of America v. Christian Joseph Nava

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
CHRISTIAN JOSEPH NAVA,
Defendant-Appellant.
No. 18-30076
D.C. No.
1:17-cr-00047-SPW-1
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Montana
Susan P. Watters, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted March 5, 2019
Portland, Oregon
Before: GRABER and BERZON, Circuit Judges, and TUNHEIM,** Chief District
Judge.
Defendant Christian Joseph Nava appeals from his conviction for possession
with intent to distribute methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841. We
affirm the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress.
FILED
MAR 08 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The Honorable John R. Tunheim, Chief United States District Judge
for the District of Minnesota, sitting by designation.

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Police officers did not violate the Fourth Amendment by searching the
residence of state probationer Brooke Brown. The district court found one of
Brown’s conditions of probation was consent to warrantless searches of her
residence upon reasonable suspicion of a violation of her terms of release and
another prohibited her from associating with known parolees, such as Nava.1
Brown listed the searched address as her residence, and her landlord told the
officers that Brown lived there; officers therefore had probable cause to believe
that Brown lived there. See, e.g., Smith v. City of Santa Clara, 876 F.3d 987, 994
n.7 (9th Cir. 2017) (holding that officers must have "probable cause to believe that
the probationer actually resides [at the searched residence]"). Officers also had a
reasonable suspicion that Brown was in violation of her conditions of probation
because credible reports stated that Defendant was staying at Brown’s residence.
See Mont. Admin. R. 20.7.1101(7) ("Upon reasonable suspicion that the offender
has violated the conditions of supervision, a probation and parole officer may
search the person, vehicle, and residence of the offender . . . .").
We reject Defendant’s argument that the officers’ subjective motivations
affect that analysis. See, e.g., Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 736 (2011)
("Fourth Amendment reasonableness is predominantly an objective inquiry. We
1 Defendant does not challenge these findings.
2

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ask whether the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify the challenged action.
If so, that action was reasonable whatever the subjective intent motivating the
relevant officials." (citations, internal quotation marks, and alteration omitted)); see
also United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 122 (2001) (rejecting the relevance of
the officers’ actual motivations to a warrantless search of a probationer’s
residence).
AFFIRMED.
3

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