United States v. Milton Allen

USCA4 Appeal: 24-4604 Doc: 49 Filed: 04/28/2026 Pg: 1 of 13

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-4604

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

MILTON CHRISTOPHER ALLEN,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle, District Judge. (5:24-cr-00136-BO-RJ-1)

Argued: January 30, 2026 Decided: April 28, 2026

Before DIAZ, Chief Judge, and NIEMEYER and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.

Reversed by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Judge Diaz and Judge Heytens joined.

ARGUED: Sarah Elizabeth Nokes, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Colin Alexander Shive, THARRINGTON SMITH LLP, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Michael F. Easley, Jr., United States Attorney, David A. Bragdon, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. F. Hill Allen, IV, THARRINGTON SMITH LLP, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. USCA4 Appeal: 24-4604 Doc: 49 Filed: 04/28/2026 Pg: 2 of 13

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

In arresting Milton Allen for interfering with a police investigation being conducted

near midnight in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh police officers placed Allen

on the ground, removed two bags he was wearing, and secured both his hands and feet.

While Allen remained on the ground but was still squirming, one officer searched Allen’s

bags and found two loaded firearms, illegal drugs, scales, cash, and related items. Allen

was charged with the illegal possession of firearms and drugs.

Allen filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained from his bags, arguing that

the warrantless search did not qualify as a lawful “search incident to arrest” because he had

already been secured at the time of the search and therefore could not have accessed the

bags to create a safety risk to the officers. The government argued otherwise. It also argued

that the items in Allen’s body bags would, in any event, have inevitably been discovered

pursuant to established policies for inventory searches. The district court, however, granted

Allen’s motion to suppress.

Because we conclude that, under established policies for inventory searches, the

evidence would inevitably have been lawfully discovered, we reverse the district court’s

order.

I

Near midnight on October 16, 2023, Raleigh police officers were conducting an

investigation of a stolen vehicle in downtown Raleigh. They had detained two people and

were in the process of searching a car when Milton Allen, while on a bicycle, interfered

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with the investigation. He rode around the officers and patrol cars and also weaved in and

out of the crime scene, causing the officers to become distracted and concerned that Allen

might ambush them while riding in and out and around the area. Their concern was

enhanced by the fact that they observed Allen wearing cross-body bags. For some 10 to

20 minutes, the police officers repeatedly ordered Allen to back away from the area, but

Allen continued riding through the scene. While doing so, he also impeded traffic as he

rode his bike against the flow of traffic and, from time to time, stopped in the middle of the

street.

The police officers undertook to arrest Allen for obstructing the investigation,

resisting their orders to back away from the scene, and impeding the flow of traffic. To

effect the arrest, two officers ordered Allen to come to them, but he disobeyed their orders

and biked by them a couple more times, without stopping. At one point, as Allen swerved

close to one of the officers, that officer attempted to grab him by the arm, but Allen slipped

through her grasp. Another officer, however, grabbed Allen from behind and pulled him

off the bicycle. A scuffle then ensued, in which Allen resisted arrest. He bit one of the

officer’s fingers and kicked one of the patrol vehicles, damaging a panel on the passenger

side. The scuffle lasted for some five minutes, and four additional officers were needed to

subdue Allen. As they were attempting to subdue him, Allen tried to reach toward the core

of his body, which officers perceived as an attempt to reach for a weapon. The officers

ultimately took Allen to the ground and placed him in the “recovery position” — a position

on Allen’s side to preserve an open airway — and one of the officers searched him. In

doing so, the officer removed two cross-body bags that Allen was wearing across his chest

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and placed them about two to three feet away. As Allen continued to resist arrest, the

officers handcuffed him with his hands behind his back and secured his ankles with leg

irons. Even then, Allen continued his efforts to resist.

While Allen continued to squirm, officers searched the nearby bags and uncovered

two loaded pistols, 11.1 grams of cocaine, 11.2 grams of marijuana, 68 fentanyl dosage

units, several unknown substances, a digital scale, several cell phones, and $1,956.16 in

cash. The officer’s written report of the arrest explained that the search of Allen was

conducted “incident to arrest per our policy and state law as well as our policy for inventory

search.”

When later explaining the applicable inventory search policies to the district court,

two Raleigh police officers testified that, under Raleigh Police Department policy, officers

are required to conduct an inventory search of every arrestee’s personal belongings before

the arrestee’s entry into the Wake County Detention Center so as to prevent the arrestee

from bringing weapons or contraband into the facility. The Raleigh Police Department’s

written policy, a copy of which they provided to the court, stated in relevant part:

Inventory Search

Wake County Detention Center

Any personal property in possession of an arrestee must be searched before entry into the Wake County Detention Center per the Wake County Detention Center’s policy. This search shall be documented on a Body-worn camera/MVR or an inventory search form. The officer shall tag the Body- worn camera/MVR video as an Inventory Search. If the Wake County Detention Center refuses to accept the arrestee’s property, this property shall be stored by the Raleigh Policy Department’s Evidence Unit for safekeeping.

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In addition, a sergeant with the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, who was responsible

for arrestee processing at the Wake County Detention Center on the date Allen was taken

into custody, testified that the Detention Center also had an inventory search policy to

conduct an inventory search of every arrestee brought into the facility. He explained that

the policy required the search of all personal items, including bags — providing examples

such as purses, backpacks, computer bags, and luggage. And if the detainee were not to

post bond, the Detention Center staff would have to conduct another search of “all”

property, “input [it] into the system for inventory purposes,” and then place it into storage.

He explained further that, in addition, a K9 officer was required to make a daily round of

the storage facility to sniff for any missed contraband, drugs, or guns. The sergeant testified

that the staff were required to follow this process for “every single” arrestee that comes

into the facility, and that, in practice, this process uncovered contraband, drugs, and guns

on arrestees or in their personal belongings “[a]lmost on a daily basis.”

After the Raleigh police officers arrested Allen, he complained of chest pain and

difficulty breathing, and emergency medical services transported him to the WakeMed

Hospital. After release from the hospital, he was transported to Wake County Detention

Center, where he was taken into custody by Detention Center staff.

Based on the contents of his cross-body bags, Allen was charged with possession of

a firearm by a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1); possession of a firearm in

furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c); and possession

with intent to distribute fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine base, in violation of 21

U.S.C. § 841.

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Allen filed a motion to suppress the evidence recovered from his cross-body bags,

arguing that the search was warrantless and that the evidence was not obtained pursuant to

a lawful search incident to arrest, relying on United States v. Davis, 997 F.3d 191, 193 (4th

Cir. 2021). The government opposed the motion, arguing that the search was permissible

even under the holding in Davis. It explained that since Allen had continued to resist the

officers and the bags were within a few feet of his immediate control, “there was a

reasonable possibility that the defendant could have retrieved the bag once they tried to

move him,” thereby justifying the search. The government also argued that under

applicable inventory search policies of both the Raleigh Police Department and the Wake

County Detention Center, the contents of the bags would have inevitably been lawfully

discovered upon Allen’s transfer to the detention center, such that the motion to suppress

should have been denied.

The district court granted Allen’s motion to suppress, ruling that the search of the

bags incident to Allen’s arrest was impermissible under Davis, as, at the time of the search,

Allen had been secured with both handcuffs and ankle restraints and was surrounded by

officers. The court also rejected the government’s inevitable discovery argument, finding

that the government failed to demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that

searches under the inventory search policies had sufficient particularity such that law

enforcement would have legally uncovered the items in the cross-body bags.

From the district court’s suppression order dated November 1, 2024, the government

filed this interlocutory appeal. See 18 U.S.C. § 3731.

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II

First, the government contends — only to preserve the issue for Supreme Court

review — that Allen’s cross-body bags were lawfully subject to a warrantless search

incident to arrest and that Davis, on which the district court relied in finding the search

unlawful, improperly extended the Supreme Court’s ruling in Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S.

332 (2009), to a non-vehicular situation.

In Davis, we held that a warrantless search incident to arrest of a backpack that

Davis was carrying while on foot violated his Fourth Amendment rights because Davis had

been secured with handcuffs at the time of the search. 997 F.3d at 198. We understood

Gant to hold that “police officers can conduct warrantless searches of non-vehicular

containers incident to a lawful arrest ‘only when the arrestee is unsecured and within

reaching distance of the [container] at the time of the search.’” Davis, 997 F.3d at 197

(emphasis added) (quoting Gant, 556 U.S. at 343). Addressing the safety concerns of

police officers, we explained that:

As to whether the bag was within Davis’s reaching distance, we acknowledge that he dropped the bag next to him before lying down. By the time of the search, however, Davis was handcuffed — severely curtailing the distance he could reach. We need not recount the various acrobatic maneuvers Davis would have needed to perform to place the backpack within his reaching distance at the time of the search. It is enough to say that, at the moment in question, the handcuffed and face-down Davis had severely restrained mobility and was not within reaching distance of the backpack next to him.

Id. at 198. Relying on these facts, we concluded that “there is no factual basis for finding

that this was a proper search incident to arrest under the first Gant holding. Because the

district court erred in concluding that the search of the backpack was a lawful search

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incident to arrest,” we reversed and remanded with instructions to grant Davis’s motion to

suppress. Id. at 200.

As to the application of Gant, we note that the Supreme Court also held that a

warrantless search incident to an arrest could be lawfully conducted in the vehicular context

if “it [was] reasonable to believe the vehicle contain[ed] evidence of the offense of arrest.”

556 U.S. at 351. When applying Gant to a non-vehicular search, such as here, the question

would then arise whether the officers could have reasonably believed that Allen’s bags

contained “evidence of the offense of arrest,” an issue that we did not address in Davis

because Davis’s initial arrest was a traffic stop, and that the district court here did not

address. More generally, the government maintains in this case that Gant does not

invalidate a warrantless search “of a backpack or cross-body bag an arrestee [on foot] is

wearing” during his arrest, arguing that “[Allen’s] bags should be subject to search

pursuant to lawful arrest even if they are no longer within reach at the times of search.”

(Citing United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235–36 (1973); Gustafson v. Florida, 414

U.S. 260, 262, 266 (1973)).

Because Davis was decided after the cases relied on by the government, we will not

address the government’s point, leaving it “as a preserved argument,” as the government

characterized it. See McMellon v. United States, 387 F.3d 329, 332–34 (4th Cir. 2004) (en

banc) (holding that one panel may not overrule the holding of another).

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III

For its main argument on appeal, the government contends that the undisputed

evidence showed that “Allen’s bags would have been [lawfully] searched in inventory

searches by Raleigh Police and the Wake County Detention Center” and that therefore the

evidence recovered from Allen’s bags would inevitably have been lawfully obtained for

use at trial. It argues that the district court erred in finding that (1) the government was

required to introduce a written copy of Wake County Detention Center’s policy and (2) the

Wake County Detention Center’s inventory search policy did not, in any event, have

“enough particularity” to limit officer discretion. The government maintains that a written

copy of the Wake County Detention Center’s policy was not required and that both that

policy and the Raleigh Police Department policy adequately limited officer discretion as

to whether to search, when to search, and what to search. Because the evidence in Allen’s

bag would have been lawfully obtained by searches under either of the inventory search

policies, it argues that the court erred in granting Allen’s motion to suppress.

As a general matter, the government may not use evidence at trial that was obtained

by a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Doyle, 650 F.3d

460, 466 (4th Cir. 2011); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961). The exclusion of such

evidence is a sanction intended to deter unlawful police conduct and to encourage searches

and seizures that comply with the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Calandra, 414

U.S. 338, 347 (1974). Evidence illegally obtained, however, may nonetheless be used if it

“would have ‘ultimately or inevitably’ [been] discovered . . . by ‘lawful means.’” United

States v. Bullette, 854 F.3d 261, 265 (4th Cir. 2017) (quoting Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S.

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431, 444 (1984)). And “lawful means” include “an inevitable search falling within an

exception to the warrant requirement, such as an inventory search, that would have

inevitably uncovered the evidence in question.” Id. (emphasis added) (citing United States

v. Allen, 159 F.3d 832, 841 (4th Cir. 1998)).

Inventory searches are “a well-defined exception to the warrant requirement,”

Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 643 (1983), and serve a variety of legitimate government

interests, including safeguarding an owner’s property; preventing claims of lost, stolen, or

vandalized property; and protecting the safety of law enforcement officers, see Colorado

v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 372 (1987). And when an inventory search is conducted with

standardized criteria that limit officer discretion, those legitimate government interests

“outweigh[] the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests.” Id.

“For the inventory search exception to apply, the search must have been conducted

according to standardized criteria, such as a uniform police department policy, and

performed in good faith.” United States v. Matthews, 591 F.3d 230, 235 (4th Cir. 2009)

(cleaned up). To qualify, the “standardized criteria must sufficiently limit a searching

officer’s discretion to prevent his search from becoming ‘a ruse for a general rummaging

in order to discover incriminating evidence.’” Id. (quoting Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4

(1990)). Thus, a lawful inventory search policy must be specific as to who is to be the

subject of an inventory search, when the person must be searched, and what is to be

searched, such that an officer would readily understand what he must do to comply with

the policy.

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In this case, there were two inventory search policies that were applicable, each of

which required officers to search Allen’s bags and each of which limited the officers’

discretion, thereby preventing arbitrary rummaging for evidence. The Raleigh Police

Department policy required, following an arrest, the search of every arrestee’s personal

belongings, meaning “any personal property in possession of [the] arrestee.” It required

that the search be documented and that the property, if not accepted by the Wake County

Detention Center, be stored in the Raleigh Police Department Evidence Unit “for

safekeeping.” Under this policy, officers were not left with any discretion as to whom to

search, when to search, and what to search.

The Wake County Detention Center search policy also covered personal property

taken from Allen, as Allen was taken to the Detention Center for intake. Under the

Detention Center policy, again, every arrestee taken to the Detention Center had to be

searched, and each search had to include all personal property of the person, including

purses, backpacks, computer bags, and luggage. If the person were not to post bond and

therefore would be taken into custody, the Wake County Detention Center policy required

that the person be searched again. The arrestee’s personal property would then be

catalogued and placed into storage at the Detention Center, where it would be subjected to

a K9 sniff for missed contraband, drugs, or guns. The testimony given by Wake County

Detention Center personnel was that “every single” arrestee entering the Detention Center

was subject to this policy. Thus, like the Raleigh Police Department policy, this policy

applied to every arrestee in Allen’s circumstances and all property in such an arrestee’s

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possession. For that reason, a search under this policy was not subject to the discretion of

the officers conducting it.

The evidence that the government presented to the district court at the suppression

hearing describing these two inventory search policies was undisputed.

Nonetheless, the district court refused to accept the inventory search exception in

this case, apparently for three reasons. First, the court disagreed philosophically with the

inventory search exception, which it noted was a court-made doctrine. The district court

referred to the exception as “Chief Justice Burger’s legacy. . . . One of my favorite cliches

of the law: inevitable discovery. . . . Yeah. Okay. Inevitable discovery is going nowhere.”

Second, the court faulted the government for “not provid[ing] a copy of [the Wake County

Detention Center’s] policy,” concluding that “[l]acking [a copy of] the applicable

guidelines, the Court [could not] say that the bags would have inevitably been searched.”

And third, the court found that the testimony about the policy lacked “enough particularity”

to make a showing of “standardized criteria [that would] limit a searching officer’s

discretion to prevent his search from becoming ‘a ruse for a general rummaging in order to

discover incriminating evidence.’” (Quoting United States v. Clarke, 842 F.3d 288, 294

(4th Cir. 2016)).

First, we need not dwell long in pointing out that the district judge’s personal views

of the inventory search exception, which was developed and is currently applied by the

Supreme Court, is of no moment. We lower courts are all bound by the Supreme Court’s

doctrines.

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Second, we also note that there is no requirement that the inventory search policy

be proved with written evidence. We have made it abundantly clear that the “government

need not provide a written inventory policy to prove that a law enforcement agency

conducts its inventory searches according to routine and standard procedures.” Bullette,

854 F.3d at 266; see also United States v. Seay, 944 F.3d 220, 223 (4th Cir. 2019) (“The

officers’ testimony explaining the inventory procedure was sufficient to satisfy our

precedent; the government was not required to produce a written policy”). Thus, a policy

“may be proven by reference to either written rules and regulations or testimony regarding

standard practices.” Matthews, 591 F.3d at 235 (emphasis added) (cleaned up).

Third and finally, we fail to understand the observation that the policies here lacked

“enough particularity.” The evidence with respect to each policy explicitly showed that

the policies applied to every arrestee and to all property possessed by the arrestee, without

exception. Surely, this meant that Allen’s bags were required to be searched and would

have been searched for inventory purposes and that their contents would inevitably have

been lawfully discovered.

Thus, regardless of whether the Raleigh police officers’ search of Allen’s bags was

a valid or invalid “search incident to arrest” under our decision in Davis, the evidence

showed that the contents of the bag would inevitably have been lawfully discovered

pursuant to the applicable inventory search policy that required the search of Allen’s bags

during his intake processing at the Wake County Detention Center.

Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s order of November 1, 2024.

REVERSED

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