Full Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 13 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 25-3701 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 3:05-cr-00167-WHA-6 v. MEMORANDUM* RICKY NORMAN ROLLINS, Jr., AKA Rickey Rollins, AKA Lil Rick, AKA Rickey Norman Rollins, Defendant - Appellant. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 25-3702 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 3:24-cr-00064-WHA-1 v. RICKY NORMAN ROLLINS, Jr., AKA Rickey Rollins, AKA Lil Rick, AKA Rickey Norman Rollins, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California William Alsup, District Judge, Presiding * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Submitted October 21, 2026** San Francisco, California Before: CALLAHAN and LEE, Circuit Judges, and EZRA, District Judge.*** On February 11, 2025, Defendant-Appellant Ricky Rollins pleaded guilty to one count of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), felon in possession of a firearm. Rollins’s conditional plea preserved the right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence of the firearm. On appeal, Rollins argues that Officer Ericka Viola, who found the firearm, violated his Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a Terry frisk because she (1) lacked sufficient reason to believe he was armed and presently dangerous, (2) exceeded the scope of a permissible frisk by manipulating his groin area, and (3) conducted a cross-gender frisk. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm. We review the denial of a motion to suppress evidence de novo and the district court’s underlying factual findings for clear error. See, e.g., United States v. Davis, 530 F.3d 1069, 1077 (9th Cir. 2008). We also review reasonable suspicion determinations de novo, but “defer to the inferences drawn by the district court and the officers on the scene, not just the district court’s factual findings.” United ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable David A. Ezra, United States District Judge for the District of Hawaii, sitting by designation. 2 25-3702 States v. Valdes-Vega, 738 F.3d 1074, 1077 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc) (citing United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 278 (2002) (Scalia, J., concurring)). 1. Officer Viola’s Terry frisk did not violate the Fourth Amendment, because she had reason to believe that Rollins was armed and presently dangerous. An officer’s reasonable suspicion that someone is armed and presently dangerous requires “specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant” a frisk for weapons. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 (1968). When evaluating whether an officer had reasonable suspicion, we consider the “totality of the circumstances” and avoids a “divide- and-conquer analysis.” Valdes-Vega, 738 F.3d at 1078 (citing Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273). This totality of the circumstances analysis considers the deductions and inferences officers make based on their specialized training and experience, and the “cumulative information available to them.” Id. Here, Officer Viola knew that (1) she was executing a warrant to search Washington and his apartment, in which Rollins was an overnight guest, for weapons in relation to an attempted murder investigation; (2) Rollins was on probation or supervised release; and (3) Rollins was seated on a couch between two people, one of whom was not restrained, covered by a blanket, and had been permitted to move around the living room. Under the totality of the circumstances, Officer Viola reasonably believed Rollins was armed and presently dangerous, 3 25-3702 justifying a frisk. 2. Officer Viola did not exceed the scope of a lawful Terry frisk, because her frisk was “reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs, or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer.” United States v. Brown, 996 F.3d 998, 1008 (9th Cir. 2021) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 29). A frisk confined to what is “minimally necessary to learn whether the [suspect is] armed and to disarm [him]” is a properly limited search. Id. (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 30). Because Officer Viola was searching for weapons and had not ruled out there being a weapon in Rollins’s groin area when she manipulated it, her frisk was properly limited to what was necessary to locate and secure weapons. See id.; see also United States v. Mattarolo, 209 F.3d 1153, 1158 (9th Cir. 2000) (finding a precautionary squeeze of an object that could be a knife was justified to ensure officer safety). 3. Officer Viola’s gender did not make her otherwise lawful Terry frisk unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Our court has found cross-gender strip searches of inmates to be unreasonable absent an emergency. Byrd v. Maricopa Cnty. Sherriff’s Dep’t, 629 F.3d 1135, 1142 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc). But cross-gender pat-down searches of the groin area are not unreasonable when performed “in a professional manner and with respect for the inmates.” Grummett v. Rushen, 779 F.2d 491, 496 (9th Cir. 1985). 4 25-3702 Here, Officer Viola conducted a pat-down of the outside of Rollins’s clothes and then reached into his pants to retrieve what she believed to be a firearm. This intrusion was far less invasive than the strip searches prohibited by Byrd. 629 F.3d at 1142 (a female cadet touching an inmate’s penis and scrotum through thin boxers and searching inside his anus “far exceeds” previously accepted searches). Moreover, Rollins began to resist by clenching his legs and slipping free from his flex cuffs, creating an emergency that justified taking the necessary steps to secure the firearm. AFFIRMED. 5 25-3702