United States v. Barela

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS April 10, 2014
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff–Appellee,
No. 13-2127
v. (D.C. No. 5:12-CR-02013-RB-1)
(D.N.M.)
XAVIER BARELA,
Defendant–Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
Before LUCERO, GORSUCH, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.
Following his guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm and
ammunition, Xavier Barela appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress.
Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
* The case is unanimously ordered submitted without oral argument pursuant to
Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2) and 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). This order and judgment is not
binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and
collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments;
nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
I
On April 21, 2012, a Roswell, New Mexico police officer approached the vehicle
Barela was driving, shortly after it pulled up to a curb. When officers attempted to arrest
Barela for driving with a suspended license, Barela removed a handgun from his pocket
and threw it into the car. He was charged in a one-count indictment with being a felon in
possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Barela moved to suppress the evidence seized as a result of the traffic stop,
arguing that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to detain him. At an evidentiary
hearing, the officer who stopped Barela testified that he noticed Barela’s vehicle was
playing extremely loud music, and saw that the occupants were not wearing seatbelts.
After initiating the stop and learning that Barela’s driver’s license had been suspended,
the officer attempted to arrest Barela and observed him throw a gun into the vehicle. He
issued citations to Barela for failing to wear a seatbelt, see N.M. Stat. § 66-7-372,
“prohibited activities while driving” on account of the loud music, and other violations.
Defense counsel argued that the traffic stop was impermissible because the
vehicle’s loud music did not disturb the peace, and claimed that despite his direct
testimony, the officer did not actually notice the seatbelt violation until after the stop
occurred. The prosecutor countered that the stop was supported “for two separate and
independent reasons,” referencing the seatbelt and noise violations. In a written order,
the district court concluded that the officer who made the stop was “fully credible” and
specifically found that he observed the seatbelt violation prior to the stop. Because the
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officer “heard loud music blaring from” Barela’s vehicle and observed that Barela and his
passenger “were not wearing seatbelts,” the court held that the officer possessed
“probable cause to believe code violations had occurred.”
Following the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress, Barela pled guilty.
He was sentenced to 51 months’ imprisonment.
II
Barela raises a single issue on appeal. He contends that the traffic stop was
impermissible because the New Mexico disturbing-the-peace statute requires that loud
music cause someone consternation or alarm, and no such showing was made.
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we accept the district court’s
findings of fact unless clearly erroneous, and view the evidence in the light most
favorable to the government. United States v. Garcia, 707 F.3d 1190, 1194 (10th Cir.
2013). The ultimate determination of whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred is
reviewed de novo. Id. A traffic stop must be “justified at its inception” by reasonable
suspicion. United States v. Gregoire, 425 F.3d 872, 876 (10th Cir. 2005). “An observed
traffic violation or a reasonable suspicion of such a violation under state law plainly
justifies a stop.” Id. “This court looks only at whether the stop was objectively justified;
the officer’s subjective motives are irrelevant.” United States v. White, 584 F.3d 935,
945 (10th Cir. 2009) (quotation omitted).
Although Barela challenges the district court’s determination that the traffic stop
was supported by reasonable suspicion of disturbing the peace, he fails to discuss in his
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opening brief the court’s independent conclusion that the stop was supported by an
observed seatbelt violation. “When an appellant does not challenge a district court’s
alternate ground for its ruling, we may affirm the ruling.” Starkey ex rel. A.B. v. Boulder
Cnty. Soc. Servs., 569 F.3d 1244, 1252 (10th Cir. 2009); see also Shook v. Bd. of Cnty.
Comm’rs, 543 F.3d 597, 613 n.7 (10th Cir. 2008) (“[W]here a district court’s disposition
rests on alternative and adequate grounds, a party who, in challenging that disposition,
only argues that one alternative is erroneous necessarily loses because the second
alternative stands as an independent and adequate basis, regardless of the correctness of
the first alternative.”). Despite Barela’s belated attempt to address the seatbelt issue in
his reply brief, we generally do not “consider arguments raised for the first time in a reply
brief.” United States v. Mora, 293 F.3d 1213, 1216 (10th Cir. 2002). We have no reason
to depart from that rule in this case.
III
Because Barela failed to properly challenge the district court’s ruling that his
traffic stop was justified by an observed seatbelt violation, we AFFIRM the denial of his
motion to suppress.
Entered for the Court
Carlos F. Lucero
Circuit Judge
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