Enforcing Narrow Plea-Agreement Appellate Waivers: Only Suppression Arguments Actually Raised in Carve-Out Filings Survive

1. Introduction

United States v. Derrick Polk (3d Cir. Sept. 2, 2026) arises out of the FBI’s March 2021 raid on U.S. Private Vaults (“USPV”), a business investigated and indicted for money laundering, drug distribution, and structuring-related crimes. During the operation, agents opened individual safe deposit boxes pursuant to a seizure warrant for “nests” of boxes and conducted an “inventory” process designed (at least on paper) to identify owners for return of property. Agents opened a box associated with Derrick Polk, found $399,000, and subjected the cash to a drug-sniffing dog alert. The ensuing investigation produced further warrants and led to Polk’s indictment on federal drug charges.

Polk moved to suppress evidence derived from the USPV search, lost, and then pleaded guilty under a written plea agreement containing a broad appellate waiver with limited “carve-outs” tied to specific district-court filings. On appeal, Polk sought to raise multiple Fourth Amendment theories—including theories aligned with the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Snitko v. United States, 90 F.4th 1250 (9th Cir. 2024). The Third Circuit affirmed, holding that the waiver foreclosed most arguments and that the one preserved argument failed on its own terms.

Note: The panel designated its decision “NONPRECEDENTIAL” under I.O.P. 5.7, limiting its formal precedential force while still reflecting how the Third Circuit applies waiver and issue-preservation principles in this recurring setting.

2. Summary of the Opinion

  • The court enforced Polk’s appellate waiver according to the plea agreement’s text, preserving only those “issue[s] and arguments raised” in three identified filings (the “Carve-Out Filings”).
  • Of Polk’s four appellate arguments, only one—an argument that agents exceeded the warrant’s scope by opening a box despite owner information on the lid— was deemed preserved.
  • The preserved argument failed because Polk framed it as a “scope of warrant” problem under Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990), but the government invoked the inventory search exception to the warrant requirement; Polk had not preserved an argument challenging the “character of the relevant exception.”
  • The court acknowledged that other arguments Polk wished to press “implicate serious Fourth Amendment questions” and noted that another circuit (the Ninth Circuit in Snitko v. United States) found USPV-related searches unconstitutional, but held that Polk’s valid waiver controlled.
  • The judgment of conviction was affirmed.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

A. Appellate waiver enforcement framework

The court applied the Third Circuit’s established test for enforcing appellate waivers, citing:

  • United States v. Grimes, 739 F.3d 125 (3d Cir. 2014) — for the standard of review (“de novo”) regarding validity and scope of appellate waivers.
  • United States v. Langley, 52 F.4th 564 (3d Cir. 2022) — for the three-part enforceability test: (1) the issue falls within the waiver’s scope; (2) waiver was knowing and voluntary; and (3) enforcing it would not work a miscarriage of justice.
  • United States v. Corso, 549 F.3d 921 (3d Cir. 2008) — for the interpretive principle that plea agreements are strictly construed.

These cases shaped the court’s approach: it did not broadly “evaluate fairness” of raising Fourth Amendment issues after a guilty plea; it enforced the bargain as written and policed the boundary between “preserved carve-out arguments” and “new appellate theories.”

B. Issue preservation: same legal rule and same facts

The decisive preservation rule came from:

  • United States v. Joseph, 730 F.3d 336 (3d Cir. 2013) — holding that “to preserve an argument and avoid waiver, the argument presented in the Court of Appeals must depend on both the same legal rule and the same facts as the argument presented in the District Court.”

The panel used Joseph to reject Polk’s attempt to treat broad, generic suppression assertions (e.g., “no probable cause or exception” or “expectation of privacy”) as preserving specific appellate theories (e.g., that inventory searches categorically do not apply to safe deposit boxes, or that USPV-specific “Supplemental Instructions” defeated the “standardized procedures” requirement).

C. Fourth Amendment and remedy doctrines referenced

  • Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990) — invoked by Polk for the principle that a search may not exceed the scope of a valid warrant. The court treated Horton as mismatched to Polk’s preserved framing because the government relied on an exception (inventory search) rather than warrant authority alone, and Polk did not preserve an exception-focused challenge.
  • Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963) — cited in a footnote for “fruit of the poisonous tree,” the exclusionary-rule doctrine suppressing derivative evidence following unlawful police action.
  • United States v. Alexander, 54 F.4th 162 (3d Cir. 2022), United States v. Stabile, 633 F.3d 219 (3d Cir. 2011), and United States v. Heath, 455 F.3d 52 (2d Cir. 2006) — cited in Judge Krause’s footnote discussion of the inevitable discovery doctrine, including the “high level of confidence” standard that lawful procedures would have led to the evidence.

D. Sister-circuit authority framing the underlying Fourth Amendment debate

  • Snitko v. United States, 90 F.4th 1250 (9th Cir. 2024) — described as finding Fourth Amendment violations as to non-criminal USPV customers whose boxes were searched during the same raid. The Third Circuit did not adopt or reject Snitko on the merits; it treated Snitko largely as context for the seriousness of Polk’s desired arguments, which remained barred by waiver/preservation limits.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. The plea agreement controlled the appeal’s permissible scope

Polk’s plea agreement preserved only the “issue and arguments raised” in three specific filings (identified by district-court docket number). The court emphasized both (i) the narrowness of those filings (collectively “fewer than ten pages”) and (ii) the strict-construction approach to plea agreements. Applying Langley, Polk did not contest that the waiver was knowing/voluntary and did not argue “miscarriage of justice,” leaving the appeal to turn primarily on scope and preservation.

B. Most appellate theories were deemed outside the carve-out

The panel parsed Polk’s four appellate arguments and compared them to what he actually wrote in the Carve-Out Filings:

  • Categorical inapplicability of the inventory exception to safe deposit boxes: not raised below; general statements about “no probable cause or exception” and “expectation of privacy” did not preserve a categorical doctrinal argument under United States v. Joseph.
  • USPV-specific “Supplemental Instructions” defeating standardized-procedure requirements: not fairly raised; a single sentence about FBI instructions not “supersed[ing]” the warrant did not preserve the later-developed theory that bespoke instructions defeat an inventory search.
  • Dog sniff of cash: waived; the filings stated the sniff occurred but did not present a legal argument challenging it. (Judge Krause, in a footnote, would have found preservation but affirmed via inevitable discovery.)

C. The only preserved argument failed because it attacked the wrong “authority”

The preserved claim was that agents exceeded the warrant’s scope by opening a box even though Polk’s name and contact information were on the lid. Polk relied on Horton v. California (warrant-scope limits). The court rejected that as insufficient because the government justified the opening as an inventory search, i.e., an exception to the warrant requirement. Thus, to win on his preserved point, Polk needed to have preserved an argument that the search exceeded the permissible scope of the inventory-search exception—the “character of the relevant exception from the warrant requirement”—which he did not.

In effect, the opinion is a cautionary procedural holding: even potentially substantial Fourth Amendment claims can be lost where a defendant pleads guilty under a waiver and does not clearly preserve the specific legal theories he later wants to litigate on appeal.

3.3 Impact

A. Practical impact (despite “nonprecedential” designation)

Although labeled “NONPRECEDENTIAL,” the decision signals how the Third Circuit is likely to approach:

  • Carve-out drafting and enforcement: “issue and arguments raised” language will be read narrowly, tethered to what was actually argued, not to broad subject matter (e.g., “Fourth Amendment suppression”).
  • Suppression litigation strategy: defendants seeking to preserve appellate review must develop and articulate distinct theories in the district court—especially when entering conditional plea arrangements or waivers with limited carve-outs.
  • USPV-type mass searches: the Third Circuit did not resolve the underlying merits (inventory search, dog sniffs, standardized procedures), leaving the substantive Fourth Amendment questions open in this circuit, while highlighting the procedural barriers that may prevent merits review.

B. Interaction with sister-circuit developments

The opinion acknowledges Snitko v. United States but does not engage its reasoning because Polk’s waiver foreclosed it. As a result, the Third Circuit neither deepens nor resolves any circuit split on how the Fourth Amendment applies to USPV-style “inventory” protocols for private safe deposit boxes. Future litigants in the Third Circuit who have not waived appellate rights—or who preserved the precise theories—may still press those merits issues.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Appellate waiver (in a plea agreement): a defendant’s contractual promise not to appeal (or to appeal only specified issues) in exchange for plea benefits. Courts generally enforce these waivers if knowing/voluntary and not unjust.
  • Carve-out: a narrow exception within a waiver permitting appeal of specific issues—here, limited to what was argued in specified filings.
  • Issue preservation: the requirement that an argument on appeal match what was presented to the trial court. Under United States v. Joseph, it must rest on the same legal rule and facts—not just a vague, related theme.
  • Inventory search: an exception to the warrant requirement typically allowing police to catalog property in lawful custody (e.g., impounded vehicles) under standardized procedures and not as a pretext for investigation.
  • Scope of the warrant: even with a valid warrant, officers must stay within what the warrant authorizes; Polk invoked this concept via Horton v. California, but the court held that focusing on warrant-scope did not address the government’s exception-based justification.
  • Fruit of the poisonous tree: under Wong Sun v. United States, evidence derived from an illegal search may be suppressed. The inevitable discovery doctrine can sometimes save such evidence if lawful steps would have found it anyway.

5. Conclusion

United States v. Derrick Polk is principally a procedural decision: the Third Circuit enforced a narrowly worded appellate waiver and demanded strict issue preservation, limiting review to arguments actually articulated in the specified carve-out filings. While the case arose from a high-profile Fourth Amendment dispute over the USPV raid—one that another circuit criticized in Snitko v. United States—the Third Circuit affirmed without reaching those broader merits. The central takeaway for practitioners is that, where a plea agreement cabins appellate rights, suppression arguments must be clearly and specifically developed in the district court if they are to survive waiver and be reviewable on appeal.