1. Introduction
This appeal concerned the denial of motions challenging a residential search, the voluntariness of incriminating statements, and the government’s handling of body-camera recordings. Antonio Darnel Reed, the defendant-appellant, sought reversal of rulings entered before his conditional guilty plea. The United States defended those rulings, and the Sixth Circuit unanimously affirmed in an opinion written by Judge Nalbandian.
During fall 2023, officers conducted controlled purchases of fentanyl from Reed at two locations: a stash house at 102 Euclid Street and a residence at 160 North Avenue that Reed shared with Darqualla Montgomery. Searches conducted under warrants on October 18, 2023, uncovered drugs and weapons at both locations. At North Avenue, officers found cocaine, fentanyl, drug paraphernalia, and a firearm upstairs.
Reed initially declined to speak with officers, but later requested an interview and signed a written waiver of his Miranda rights. During the recorded interview, he claimed ownership of the drugs and guns at both properties. Although officers encouraged cooperation, they expressly disclaimed any guarantee against prosecution.
Before pleading guilty, Reed filed several motions without counsel. He maintained that officers searched a separate residence outside the North Avenue warrant’s scope, obtained his statements through promises of favorable treatment, and withheld or altered body-camera footage. The district court rejected those arguments at a March 17, 2025 hearing. Two days later, Reed pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute the controlled substances found at Euclid Street, while reserving the right to appeal the earlier rulings.
3. Analysis: Precedents and Legal Reasoning
A. Appellate Review and the Unchallenged Good-Faith Ground
The court began with the standard of review from United States v. Adams, 583 F.3d 457, 463 (6th Cir. 2009): factual findings supporting a suppression ruling receive clear-error review, while legal conclusions receive de novo review. Through Adams, the court also relied on United States v. Navarro-Camacho, 186 F.3d 701, 705 (6th Cir. 1999), for the instruction to view the evidence in the light most likely to support the district court’s denial of suppression.
These standards distinguish disputes about what happened from disputes about the legal consequences. Whether the building functioned as one home was principally a factual question; whether the established circumstances satisfied Fourth Amendment requirements involved legal analysis.
The decisive procedural authority was Stewart v. IHT Ins. Agency Grp., LLC, 990 F.3d 455, 456–57 (6th Cir. 2021). Under that decision, a party seeking reversal must challenge each independently sufficient ground supporting the district court’s ruling. An argument first developed in a reply brief ordinarily comes too late.
The district court had supplied two grounds for denying Reed’s search-related motion: the warrant and search were proper, and the good-faith exception independently prevented suppression. Reed’s opening brief did not challenge the latter ground. Consequently, even a successful argument that the search violated the Fourth Amendment would leave an independent basis for denying suppression intact.
Reed’s reply brief did not repair the omission. Apart from its timing, the purported good-faith challenge essentially repeated his claim that probable cause was lacking. The court explained that this did not meaningfully address good faith: the exception matters precisely when a warrant or search is otherwise defective.
Doctrinal significance: Challenging the existence of a constitutional violation and challenging the availability of exclusion are different tasks. The court did not independently resolve every requirement of the good-faith exception; it held that Reed had failed to present a timely, developed challenge to the district court’s application of it.
B. One Building, Multiple Addresses, and the Scope of a Warrant
Although the unchallenged good-faith ruling was enough to affirm, the court additionally rejected Reed’s Fourth Amendment arguments on their merits. Reed claimed that the downstairs area was a separate residence at 158 North Avenue, while the warrant authorized a search only of 160 North Avenue upstairs.
The governing precedents
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United States v. Olt, 492 F.2d 910, 911 (6th Cir. 1974), supplied the basic distinction: a building containing separate residences ordinarily requires probable cause for each residence, but probable cause to search a building is sufficient when it is used as a single unit.
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United States v. Crumpton, 824 F.3d 593, 614–15 (6th Cir. 2016), reinforced that distinction and supported examining whether officers reasonably understood the premises to function as one residence when executing the warrant.
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Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 85 (1987), and United States v. Shamaeizadeh, 80 F.3d 1131, 1138 (6th Cir. 1996), directed attention to what officers knew or reasonably should have known about separate residences when obtaining the warrant.
Validity of the warrant when obtained
Officers had observed the number 160 on the building, their reporting system contained only that address, and Reed himself had previously supplied 160 North Avenue as his address. Although two numbers, two mailboxes, and two doorbells flanked the single entrance, Reed offered no evidence establishing that officers should have recognized those features during their pre-warrant investigation as indicating separate residences.
The court therefore rejected the contention that the warrant was defective because officers should have understood it to cover only part of a multi-residence building. The inquiry was grounded in reasonably available information, not simply in Reed’s later characterization of the property.
Reasonableness of the search as executed
The interior evidence supported the district court’s finding of a unified residence: the building had one kitchen, unlocked internal doors, and no interior markings separating residential units. Under United States v. Crumpton, those features supported the officers’ reasonable understanding that they could search the building as one functional unit.
The decision does not authorize searching an entire apartment building merely because a warrant identifies one address. Its reasoning depends on the particular evidence that this building operated as one residence and on the absence of proof that officers knew or should have known otherwise.
The separate limitation of personal Fourth Amendment rights
In a footnote, the court identified another problem with Reed’s theory. His claim that he lived only downstairs conflicted with officer testimony, his own statements, and belongings found upstairs, including a credit card bearing his name.
More fundamentally, if Reed’s premise were accepted—that downstairs was his separate residence and upstairs was another residence in which he asserted no Fourth Amendment right—he could not obtain suppression of evidence found upstairs merely by challenging the downstairs search.
The court relied on Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 133–34 (1978), which establishes that Fourth Amendment rights are personal and cannot be asserted vicariously. This was a conditional, additional rationale: Reed’s own proposed factual framework would undermine his ability to challenge the upstairs search where the relevant North Avenue drugs and firearm were found.
C. Encouraging Cooperation Versus Coercing a Confession
Reed argued that officers induced his statements by promising that he would not be arrested or jailed if he cooperated. The court applied the three-part framework from Michael v. Butts, 59 F.4th 219, 227 (6th Cir. 2023). A coercion claim requires:
- Objectively coercive police conduct;
- Coercion sufficient to overbear the defendant’s will; and
- Police misconduct that crucially motivated the statement.
Both Michael v. Butts and Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 225–26 (1973), required consideration of the totality of the circumstances. United States v. Jacobs, 63 F.4th 1055, 1058 (6th Cir. 2023), supplied the corresponding review framework: historical factual findings receive clear-error review, but the appellate court independently assesses their effect on voluntariness.
The court also invoked United States v. Delaney, 443 F. App’x 122, 129 (6th Cir. 2011), for the distinction between coercion and ordinary discussions of cooperation. Promises to recommend leniency, or speculation that cooperation could help a suspect, do not by themselves establish coercion.
Reed failed at the first step. The interrogating officer denied promising freedom from arrest or incarceration, and Reed offered no evidence contradicting that testimony. The recorded interview instead contained an express disclaimer that officers could not guarantee he would avoid prosecution.
Reed’s voluntary reinitiation of contact and written Miranda waiver further supported the district court’s findings. Those facts were relevant circumstances, not a categorical rule that a signed waiver defeats every coercion claim. Because the court found no objectively coercive conduct, Reed’s assertion that he would not otherwise have confessed could not establish involuntariness.
D. Brady, Delayed Disclosure, and Alleged Video Editing
Reed’s final arguments concerned the government’s production and alleged alteration of body-camera recordings. The governing disclosure framework came from Salter v. City of Detroit, 133 F.4th 527, 536 (6th Cir. 2025). A claimant must establish that:
- The government withheld evidence, intentionally or inadvertently;
- The evidence favored the defense, either substantively or through impeachment; and
- The evidence was material, so that nondisclosure caused prejudice.
The court found no established withholding. The government had provided all video evidence at least three weeks before the motion hearing. At that hearing, the district court offered Reed an opportunity to finish reviewing the footage and request another hearing. Reed did not pursue that option and instead pleaded guilty.
The court separately examined prejudice from allegedly delayed disclosure. Under United States v. Fields, 763 F.3d 443, 459 (6th Cir. 2014), a defendant advancing that theory must explain what he would have done differently with additional review time. Reed supplied no such explanation and, more than a year and a half after receiving the videos, still identified nothing exculpatory in them.
Relying on Hughbanks v. Hudson, 2 F.4th 527, 540–41 (6th Cir. 2021), the court rejected conclusory allegations and speculation as insufficient. Reed likewise produced no evidence that the recordings had been edited. The opinion additionally noted counsel’s acknowledgment that he had not reviewed the batches of video evidence.
Importantly, the decision does not establish that eventual disclosure always cures a Brady problem. Its reasoning addresses this record: production occurred before the hearing, additional proceedings were available, and Reed identified neither favorable evidence nor concrete prejudice.
Reed had also requested an expert to investigate possible editing. The district court found no indication of alteration but left open further review and a renewed hearing request. The appellate opinion did not announce a separate general rule governing entitlement to a defense video expert.
4. Potential Impact
Appellate advocacy
The clearest practical consequence concerns briefing. A conditional plea preserves specified issues for appeal, but it does not excuse the appellant from challenging every independent ground supporting an adverse ruling. Counsel must distinguish an attack on a warrant from an attack on the good-faith basis for admitting evidence.
Residential-search litigation
The opinion underscores the importance of developing a factual record about how premises actually function. Exterior numbering is relevant, but so are kitchens, internal access, unit markings, personal belongings, and officers’ knowledge. Future disputes will likely turn on whether the evidence supports genuine residential separation or functional unity.
Interrogation practices
The decision illustrates the evidentiary value of recording interviews, documenting rights waivers, and expressly disclaiming guarantees against prosecution. It does not insulate all cooperation-related promises from scrutiny; the total circumstances and the actual content of any promise remain essential.
Digital evidence disputes
Allegations of missing or altered recordings require more than suspicion. A meaningful challenge should identify the suspected omission or alteration, explain its defense significance, and connect disclosure timing to a concrete lost opportunity. Declining an offered chance for further review can substantially weaken a later claim of prejudice.
Because the opinion is designated not recommended for publication and principally applies established authorities, its broader value is persuasive and practical rather than the creation of a new binding doctrinal framework.