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 2018-12

United States v. Sevan Karapetyan ( 2018 )


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  •                                                                            FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
DEC 10 2018
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                        No.   17-50400
Plaintiff-Appellee,                D.C. No.
2:16-cr-00857-RHW-1
v.
SEVAN KARAPETYAN,                                MEMORANDUM*
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Robert H. Whaley, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted December 6, 2018**
Pasadena, California
Before: O’SCANNLAIN and IKUTA, Circuit Judges, and STEEH,*** District
Judge.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 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 George Caram Steeh III, United States District Judge
for the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designation.
Sevan Karapetyan appeals his conviction and sentence for possession of
stolen mail under 18 U.S.C. § 1708.
Because the police officers’ investigatory stop of Karapetyan was
“supported by reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity may [have
been] afoot,” United States v. Valdes-Vega,
    738 F.3d 1074
    , 1078 (9th Cir. 2013)
(quoting United States v. Arvizu,
    534 U.S. 266
    , 273 (2002)), the stop did not
violate the Fourth Amendment. The police officers properly drew on their own
experience and specialized training to infer from the totality of the circumstances
(including Karapetyan’s wary and evasive behavior and his struggle to balance
several packages in an area experiencing a rise in mail theft) that Karapetyan may
have been engaged in criminal activity. See Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273.
Furthermore, Karapetyan was not entitled to Miranda warnings because
Karapetyan was not in custody when the police officer asked Karapetyan whether
the packages belonged to him. See Stanley v. Schriro,
    598 F.3d 612
    , 618 (9th Cir.
2010). Police officers may ask a moderate number of questions during the course
of an investigatory stop without converting the stop into an arrest, see Berkemer v.
McCarty,
    468 U.S. 420
    , 439–40 (1984), and the police officers did not isolate
Karapetyan from the public, confront Karapetyan with any evidence of guilt, or
apply pressure to obtain an answer, see United States v. Beraun-Panez,
    812 F.2d 2
    578, 580 (9th Cir. 1987). Even if Karapetyan had been in custody, the district
court did not consider Karapetyan’s statement to the police in finding Karapetyan
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and thus any error in refusing to exclude
Karapetyan’s statement was harmless. See Chapman v. California,
    386 U.S. 18
    ,
23–24 (1967).
Finally, the district court did not err by concluding that Karapetyan’s
sentence was subject to enhancement under Sentencing Guideline
§ 2B1.1(b)(15)(B). Because Karapetyan possessed a knife that “had some
potential emboldening role in” Karapetyan’s felonious conduct, see United States
v. Ellis,
    241 F.3d 1096
    , 1099 (9th Cir. 2001) (quoting United States v. Routon,
    25 F.3d 815
    , 819 (9th Cir. 1994)), Karapetyan possessed the knife “in connection
with” his offense, see U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2B1.1(b)(15)(B).
AFFIRMED.
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