No Standing, No Fruit: Abandonment of a Borrowed Vehicle (and Phone) Bars Fourth Amendment Suppression

Commentary on United States v. Tsatenawa, No. 24-50034 (5th Cir. Sept. 5, 2025) (per curiam) (unpublished)

Introduction

In United States v. Tsatenawa, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial of a motion to suppress evidence arising from a street encounter at a San Antonio gas station, a subsequent vehicle inventory search, and a later arrest and residential search. The case centers on three core Fourth Amendment issues:

• Whether a defendant’s flight from police and leaving a borrowed vehicle unlocked in a public place constitutes abandonment that defeats standing to challenge a search of the vehicle and an on-board cell phone;
• Whether alleged misrepresentations or omissions related to an earlier search can invalidate later warrants under Franks v. Delaware when the defendant fails to show the affiant’s deliberate falsehood or reckless disregard;
• Whether the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine applies when the defendant lacks Fourth Amendment standing to attack the initial “tree.”

The panel (Judges Jones, Stewart, and Ramirez) held that Asia Victor Tsatenawa abandoned the truck and phone by fleeing and leaving them readily accessible to the public, thereby forfeiting any reasonable expectation of privacy. It also rejected his Franks challenge to later warrants because he did not prove deliberate falsehood by the warrant affiants. Finally, the court held that the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine is inapplicable where the defendant lacks standing to challenge the original search.

Summary of the Judgment

• Abandonment and Standing: By running from officers and leaving an unlocked truck (door initially open, window down) parked at a public gas station and obstructing a sidewalk, Tsatenawa abandoned the vehicle and its contents. He therefore lacked Fourth Amendment standing to challenge the search of the truck or the cell phone found inside. The court distinguished United States v. Scrivner.
• Franks Challenge to Later Warrants: The affidavits supporting the arrest and apartment-search warrants were not shown to contain deliberate or recklessly false statements attributable to the affiants. Attacks on other officers’ conduct or reports do not suffice under Franks without proof tied to the affiant.
• Fruit of the Poisonous Tree: The doctrine does not apply because the defendant lacked standing to contest the initial search that allegedly “tainted” later evidence. No standing, no fruit.
• Disposition: Affirmed. The panel did not need to reach alternative theories (e.g., probable cause or warrant exceptions) to uphold the vehicle and phone searches, nor did it rely on the district court’s good-faith ruling for the apartment search; it affirmed on the standing-based rationale.

Case Background

Officers responding to a report of a man in a red pickup allegedly pointing a firearm arrived at a gas station and observed a man in the driver’s seat. The man exited and fled on foot, leaving the truck unsecured and accessible. Officers recovered an unlocked cell phone under the center console; one officer briefly accessed Facebook, seeing it logged in as “Asia Tsatenawa” and recognizing the name. After a supervisor ordered the truck to be towed because it blocked a public sidewalk, an inventory search revealed a loaded AK-47–style pistol under a sweatshirt within reach of the driver’s seat.

Days later, officers arrested Tsatenawa near his apartment after a brief attempted flight, finding drugs in his car and then obtaining a warrant to search his apartment, where they seized additional narcotics, paraphernalia, and firearms. Indicted on drug and firearms counts, he moved to suppress evidence from the truck, cell phone, and home, arguing unlawful searches and warrant defects. The district court denied the motion, finding abandonment of the truck and applying the good-faith exception to the apartment search. He entered a conditional plea, reserving the suppression issue for appeal.

Detailed Analysis

1) Precedents Cited and How They Shaped the Decision

• Standing and Abandonment:
  • Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978): Fourth Amendment rights are personal; a defendant must show a legitimate expectation of privacy in the place or thing searched to have “standing.”
  • United States v. Powell, 732 F.3d 361 (5th Cir. 2013): Reaffirms standing as a “central component” of Fourth Amendment suppression analysis.
  • United States v. Colbert, 474 F.2d 174 (5th Cir. 1973): Abandonment turns on intent inferred from circumstances. Police presence for investigation does not render abandonment involuntary.
  • United States v. Alvarez, 6 F.3d 287 (5th Cir. 1993): Abandonment must be voluntary but can occur during a lawful police presence.
  • United States v. Edwards, 441 F.2d 749 (5th Cir. 1971): Vehicle left after police pursuit deemed abandoned; loss of privacy expectation.
  • United States v. Iraheta, 764 F.3d 455 (5th Cir. 2014) and United States v. Wise, 877 F.3d 209 (5th Cir. 2017): A defendant who abandons property lacks standing to challenge a subsequent search.
  • United States v. Self, 414 F. App’x 611 (5th Cir. 2011) (unpublished): Phone left in car after flight upon seeing officers treated as abandoned.
  • United States v. Williams, 569 F.2d 823 (5th Cir. 1978): Trailer left at a rest stop under suspicion of being followed was abandonment.
  • United States v. Scrivner, 680 F.2d 1099 (5th Cir. 1982): Not abandonment where trucks with keys left at lessee’s warehouse; no evasion of police; private, controlled context. This case was distinguished.
  • United States v. Barlow, 17 F.3d 85 (5th Cir. 1994): Unlocked car with key left at end of public street after foot chase reasonably treated as abandoned.
• Franks v. Delaware and Warrant Integrity:
  • Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978): A warrant is void if the affiant intentionally or recklessly includes false statements, and the corrected affidavit lacks probable cause.
  • United States v. Ortega, 854 F.3d 818 (5th Cir. 2017): Applies Franks; the defendant bears the burden to show deliberate or reckless falsehood that is material to probable cause.
  • United States v. Wake, 948 F.2d 1422 (5th Cir. 1991): The Franks inquiry targets the affiant’s veracity; misconduct by non-affiant officers is insufficient absent proof the affiant adopted it with deliberate or reckless falsity.
  • United States v. Alvarez, 127 F.3d 372 (5th Cir. 1997): The party challenging the warrant bears the burden.
• Fruit of the Poisonous Tree:
  • United States v. Cotton, 722 F.3d 271 (5th Cir. 2013): Evidence derived from an illegal search is suppressed unless the chain of causation is broken.
  • United States v. Olivares-Rangel, 458 F.3d 1104 (10th Cir. 2006), and United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83 (1980): Fruit doctrine applies only if the defendant has standing to challenge the predicate violation.
  • LaFave, Search and Seizure § 11.4 (6th ed. 2024): Treatise support for the “no standing, no fruit” principle.
• Standards of Review and Appellate Practice:
  • United States v. Hearn, 563 F.3d 95 (5th Cir. 2009); United States v. Keller, 123 F.4th 264 (5th Cir. 2024); United States v. Robinson, 741 F.3d 588 (5th Cir. 2014): Factual findings are reviewed for clear error; legal conclusions de novo; constitutionality and probable cause are legal conclusions.
  • United States v. Montemayor, 55 F.4th 1003 (5th Cir. 2022); United States v. Tovar, 719 F.3d 376 (5th Cir. 2013); United States v. Scroggins, 599 F.3d 433 (5th Cir. 2010): Deference to district court credibility findings from live testimony; evidence viewed in light most favorable to the prevailing party.
  • United States v. Pack, 612 F.3d 341 (5th Cir. 2010); United States v. Charles, 469 F.3d 402 (5th Cir. 2006): The appellate court may affirm on any ground supported by the record.

2) The Court’s Legal Reasoning

The panel’s analysis had three integrated steps:

1. Abandonment forecloses standing to suppress the truck and phone evidence. The court inferred abandonment from the totality of circumstances: fleeing upon police arrival; leaving the truck unlocked with open access (door initially open, window down); parking in a public, high-access area (a gas station) in a manner obstructing a public sidewalk. Under Colbert, intent to abandon may be inferred from such facts, and police presence does not render the abandonment involuntary absent improper coercion. The court analogized to Edwards (abandoned car after pursuit), Self (phone left in car after flight), and Barlow (unsecured car left after chase). It distinguished Scrivner, where vehicles were left at a private warehouse controlled by the defendant and not as part of evasion of police.
2. Franks challenge fails: no showing of deliberate or reckless falsehood by the affiants. The arrest-warrant affidavit (ATF Special Agent Beach) expressly relied on a mix of personal knowledge and information from other agencies/sources; the apartment-search affidavit focused on observations during the arrest. The defendant’s “serious doubts” about the earlier truck/phone search or the preparing officers’ report did not demonstrate that either affiant intentionally or recklessly included false statements material to probable cause. Under Franks, Ortega, and Wake, the defendant had the burden to target the affiant’s veracity and materiality; he did not.
3. No standing means no fruit. Invoking Cotton, Salvucci, and Olivares-Rangel, the panel held the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine inapplicable because the defendant had no standing to challenge the purportedly tainted initial search. If a defendant cannot establish that his own rights were violated at the outset, he cannot exclude downstream evidence as “fruit” of that violation. This reasoning also made it unnecessary to reach the district court’s reliance on the good-faith exception for the apartment search. Consistent with Pack and Charles, the panel affirmed on an alternative ground supported by the record.

3) Distinguishing Contrary Authority: Scrivner’s Narrow Lane

The defense relied on United States v. Scrivner, where vehicles left with keys in a leased warehouse were not deemed abandoned. The panel explained that Scrivner’s facts—private premises leased by the defendant, no indication of avoiding police, vehicles left in a controlled environment—contrast sharply with a suspect fleeing and leaving an unsecured vehicle in a public place immediately accessible to the public and in violation of sidewalk access. Scrivner thus does not shield a defendant who departs a public scene to avoid police contact, leaving the vehicle and contents exposed.

4) Impact and Practical Implications

• Abandonment Applied to Borrowed Vehicles and On-Board Phones: The opinion confirms that abandonment principles apply regardless of ownership; permissive use of a borrowed vehicle ordinarily confers a privacy expectation, but that expectation is forfeited by abandonment. Importantly, the same analysis extends to a phone left in the abandoned vehicle, a point that resonates in the post-Riley era where phones are otherwise granted heightened privacy protection when seized from a person or an arrestee. When the phone is abandoned, Riley-type warrant requirements are not reached because standing is extinguished.
• “No Standing, No Fruit” as a Gatekeeping Rule: The panel’s use of standing as a threshold to bar fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree arguments is a powerful prosecutorial shield. Defense strategies that hinge on downstream “taint” must first establish a personal Fourth Amendment violation at the root.
• Franks Challenges Must Target the Affiant: The court reiterates that discrepancies or questionable conduct by non-affiant officers are not enough. Defense counsel must marshal evidence that the affiant knowingly or recklessly misstated or omitted facts essential to probable cause.
• Inventory Searches Left Undecided: Although the truck was towed for blocking a public sidewalk and the firearm was found during an inventory search, the panel avoided evaluating the legality of that inventory. Law enforcement should continue to ensure written policies, standardized procedures, and non-investigatory motives for inventories, while defense counsel should scrutinize policy compliance and pretext.
• Unpublished but Persuasive: Under Fifth Circuit Rule 47.5, the opinion is not precedential, but it is citable and offers persuasive guidance on abandonment, Franks burdens, and the limits of the fruit doctrine when standing is absent.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Fourth Amendment standing — A defendant can suppress evidence only if the search violated his own reasonable expectation of privacy. Standing is not about Article III standing; it is a Fourth Amendment-specific inquiry into privacy expectations.
• Abandonment — If a person voluntarily discards or leaves property in circumstances suggesting no intent to retrieve or retain privacy in it (e.g., fleeing and leaving it unsecured in a public place), he forfeits any expectation of privacy; he cannot later challenge a search of that property.
• Franks v. Delaware challenge — To invalidate a warrant, the defendant must prove that the affiant intentionally or recklessly included false material statements (or omitted material facts) and that, after correcting the affidavit, probable cause is lacking. The focus is on the affiant, not just any officer.
• Fruit of the poisonous tree — Evidence derived from an illegal search is excluded unless the government shows attenuation, independent source, or inevitable discovery. But this doctrine only applies if the defendant had standing to challenge the original violation.
• Good-faith exception — Even if a warrant is defective, evidence may be admissible if officers reasonably relied on it in good faith. Here, the Fifth Circuit did not need to decide good-faith because it held the fruit doctrine inapplicable due to lack of standing.
• Inventory search — When police lawfully impound a vehicle, they may inventory its contents under standardized, non-investigatory procedures. The court did not reach this here because abandonment resolved standing first.

Observations and Open Questions

• Phone searches after abandonment: The court’s reliance on Self to include a phone left in the vehicle within the abandonment analysis aligns with general abandonment doctrine but operates in the shadow of Riley v. California’s robust protections for phones when seized from a person. Practitioners should note that when a phone is truly abandoned, Riley’s warrant requirement is not triggered because there is no standing. Still, officers may consider seeking a warrant for digital searches to avoid litigation over whether the device was in fact abandoned.
• Consent and third-party interactions: A bystander had keys and spoke with the vehicle owner (the defendant’s brother) who confirmed the loan. The panel did not analyze third-party consent or apparent authority; abandonment made those questions unnecessary. Future cases might test how third-party access interacts with abandonment or consent doctrines.
• Community caretaking and towing: The supervisor’s direction to tow due to sidewalk obstruction prompted an inventory. Although the Supreme Court has constrained “community caretaking” in the home context (e.g., Caniglia v. Strom), vehicle inventories remain viable under Opperman and Bertine when standardized and non-pretextual. Those issues were not decided here.
• Minor clerical inconsistency: The opinion references December 8, 2025 as an arrest date following December 3, 2020 initial events. This appears to be a typographical error that does not affect the legal analysis or outcome.

Key Takeaways

• Fleeing and leaving a borrowed, unsecured vehicle and on-board phone in a public place constitutes abandonment that extinguishes Fourth Amendment standing.
• Without standing to challenge the initial search, a defendant cannot suppress later evidence as “fruit of the poisonous tree.”
• Franks challenges must be laser-focused on the warrant affiant’s deliberate falsehoods or reckless omissions that are material to probable cause; generalized attacks on earlier police conduct are insufficient.
• Courts may affirm suppression rulings on any record-supported ground, even if different from the district court’s rationale (e.g., good-faith below, standing on appeal).

Conclusion

United States v. Tsatenawa reinforces three interlocking principles in Fifth Circuit suppression jurisprudence. First, abandonment is a fact-intensive inquiry that can eliminate a defendant’s privacy expectation—and thus standing—when a suspect flees and leaves property unsecured in a public, accessible location, even if the property is borrowed. Second, Franks remains a stringent remedy aimed at the affiant’s veracity and materiality; mere doubts about other officers’ actions will not invalidate a warrant without proof tied to the affiant. Third, the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine is unavailable absent standing to attack the initial search. While unpublished, the decision provides a clear, practical roadmap for trial courts and litigants, and it underscores a potent threshold defense for the government: no standing, no fruit.