United States v. Jackson: Appellate Burden to Show a Fourth Amendment “Search” Before Litigating Warrant-Scope and Exclusionary-Rule Exceptions

Introduction

In United States v. Jackson (10th Cir. Apr. 16, 2026) (unpublished “Order and Judgment”), the Tenth Circuit affirmed the denial of a motion to suppress evidence found on Kalub Sean Jackson’s cellphone in a child pornography investigation. The investigation began with cyber-tips concerning child pornography in a Dropbox account associated with Jackson. A federal magistrate judge issued a warrant authorizing a search of Jackson’s residence, property, and certain items (including phones), and also referencing “the person of Kalub Sean Jackson at the time of the search warrant execution.”

When officers staged to execute the warrant, Jackson unexpectedly drove by them away from his residence. Officers stopped him about a mile away, told him they had a warrant, seized his phone, and obtained access to the device (including via facial recognition and a passcode). A later search of the phone produced the only incriminating evidence. Jackson argued that the warrant authorized any search of his person only at the residence, rendering the roadside encounter an improper execution of the warrant. The district court denied suppression, concluding the warrant imposed no location restriction (or, alternatively, that good faith and inevitable discovery applied).

The key appellate issues thus involved (1) the scope of the warrant as executed, and (2) whether suppression was required if the warrant was exceeded. The panel majority, however, resolved the appeal on a more basic ground: Jackson failed to carry his burden on appeal to show a Fourth Amendment violation occurred in the first place, because he did not establish that the roadside encounter—though concededly a seizure—constituted an unlawful “search” triggering the exclusionary rule. Judge Rossman dissented, criticizing the majority’s reliance on Terry v. Ohio framing and arguing that the warrant was executed improperly and no exclusionary-rule exception applied.

Summary of the Opinion

The court affirmed Jackson’s conviction. While acknowledging the parties’ dispute over whether the warrant limited searches of Jackson’s person to the residence, the majority declined to decide warrant scope, good faith, or inevitable discovery. Instead, it held Jackson failed to demonstrate a Fourth Amendment violation as framed on appeal. The majority reasoned:

• The roadside stop itself was lawful under Terry principles because officers had at least reasonable suspicion based on the investigation.
• Jackson focused on improper “execution” of a warrant but did not establish that a “search” occurred at roadside or that the phone seizure/access was unlawful under the Fourth Amendment.
• Because an appellant must persuade the appellate court to reverse, and Jackson failed to develop the necessary constitutional predicate, suppression was unwarranted.

The dissent would have reversed, concluding officers exceeded the warrant’s scope by searching Jackson away from the premises, and that neither United States v. Leon good faith nor Nix v. Williams inevitable discovery saved the evidence.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

1) Appellate review, burdens, and affirmance on any supported ground

• United States v. Gay and United States v. Salas: Cited for the “totality of the circumstances” approach and deference to factfinding (clear error review, in government’s favor). They undergird the majority’s posture that the record is viewed in the government’s favor when assessing suppression rulings.
• United States v. Muhtorov: Cited for de novo review of Fourth Amendment reasonableness; supports the court’s authority to resolve legal issues independently.
• United States v. Nichols: Used to distinguish when “whether a search occurred” is reviewed de novo on undisputed facts—important because the majority treated the “search” question as a threshold Jackson did not adequately litigate on appeal.
• United States v. Ortega-Jimenez: Cited for the rule that “scope of a warrant” is a legal question reviewed de novo. Notably, the dissent also relied on Ortega-Jimenez to argue for “practical accuracy rather than technical precision” in construing the warrant as location-conditioned.
• United States v. Gaye and United States v. Streett: Cited for de novo review of exclusionary-rule exceptions (good faith, inevitable discovery). The majority referenced these standards but declined to reach the exceptions.
• Richison v. Ernest Group, Inc.: Central to the majority’s disposition: appellate courts may affirm on any basis supported by the record, and the appellant must persuade the court to reverse. This case provides the doctrinal lever for affirmance despite unresolved warrant-scope disputes.
• United States v. Sineneng-Smith and Castro v. United States: Cited to emphasize party-presentation and the appellant’s obligation to develop arguments for relief—used to fault Jackson’s briefing for not establishing the necessary “search” predicate.

2) Exclusionary rule and burdens in suppression litigation

• Davis v. United States: Cited for the general proposition that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment must be suppressed, setting up the majority’s move: if no violation is shown, suppression never begins.
• United States v. Eylicio-Montoya and United States v. Hernandez: Support the burden on a defendant to show his Fourth Amendment rights were implicated in order to invoke the exclusionary rule.
• United States v. Torres, United States v. Shrum, and United States v. Carhee: Provide the burden-shifting framework for warrantless searches (government must justify reasonableness/exception once the defendant shows a prima facie case), but also the key distinction the majority used: when evidence is obtained “pursuant” to a warrant, “the defendant has the burden of proof.” The majority treated Jackson’s claim as a “pursuant to a warrant” challenge—thus placing the burden squarely on him to prove improper execution.

3) Terry stops and the “seizure vs. search” framing

• California v. Hodari D.: Establishes that a traffic stop is a “seizure” when a person submits to police authority—important because the majority accepted a seizure occurred but required more: an unlawful “search” or otherwise actionable Fourth Amendment violation.
• United States v. Place, United States v. Hensley, and United States v. McHugh: Cited to define the scope of investigatory stops based on reasonable suspicion, including investigation of completed felonies. These cases supported the majority’s view that stopping Jackson to question him was independently permissible.
• United States v. Bailey: Cited as an example of an appellate court sustaining police conduct under Terry even when another doctrine (there, Summers) did not apply. The majority used it to justify resolving the case on a different doctrinal ground than the warrant-execution dispute.

4) Dissent’s exclusionary-rule exception authorities

• United States v. Leon: The dissent invoked Leon to frame the good-faith exception’s proper domain (officers obtain a warrant and act within its scope, later found invalid).
• United States v. Herrera: Cited by the dissent for the Tenth Circuit’s articulation of Leon, emphasizing “acted within its scope.”
• United States v. Angelos and United States v. Rowland: The dissent cited these cases for the proposition that the Leon good-faith exception does not save an “improperly executed warrant.” This was the dissent’s principal doctrinal answer to the government’s alternative arguments.
• Nix v. Williams and United States v. Owens: The dissent relied on these to argue inevitable discovery requires an “independent, lawful police investigation,” which it found missing because officers expressly invoked the warrant as the basis for the stop and search.
• United States v. O'Neil: Cited by the dissent for the proposition that evidence from an unconstitutional search is inadmissible unless the government proves an exception.

Legal Reasoning

1) The majority’s threshold move: no developed showing of an actionable Fourth Amendment violation

The opinion’s operative reasoning is procedural and structural rather than interpretive. The court did not decide what “at the time of the search warrant execution” meant, nor whether the phone seizure was within the warrant’s scope. Instead, it treated Jackson’s appellate presentation as failing at the first step: showing that the officers’ roadside conduct, as litigated and framed, amounted to a Fourth Amendment violation requiring suppression.

Two linked ideas drive this approach:

1. Lawful seizure does not equal unlawful search. The court treated the stop as lawful under investigatory-stop doctrine, and then emphasized Jackson did not establish (or even properly argue) that what followed was a “search” attributable to unlawful warrant execution in a way that triggers exclusion.
2. Appellate persuasion and burden allocation are dispositive. By invoking Richison v. Ernest Group, Inc., the panel emphasized that even if other issues are contestable, the appellant’s failure to build the necessary record-based legal argument forecloses relief. The majority characterized Jackson’s “improperly executed warrant” theory as incomplete because it presumed “warrant execution” without establishing the search predicate and without grappling with “multiple plausible lawful pathways.”

Notably, the court’s analysis implicitly separates (a) the initial stop (Terry-type seizure), (b) the taking of the phone (seizure of property), and (c) accessing the phone’s contents (search of digital data). But it held Jackson failed to do the argumentative work necessary to place (b) and (c) into a developed Fourth Amendment violation theory on appeal.

2) The majority’s use of Terry as an “independent, lawful basis”

While the government had discussed Terry in an inevitable-discovery section, the majority treated Terry as directly authorizing the roadside stop, and rejected the dissent’s suggestion that Terry requires spontaneity. The majority cited United States v. Place, United States v. Hensley, and United States v. McHugh to show that Terry extends well beyond the original on-the-street facts of Terry v. Ohio.

The dissent viewed this as a category error: officers obtained and invoked a warrant, so they should be held to the warrant’s conditions; a warrantless-stop doctrine should not excuse a warrant’s improper execution. The majority responded that resolving the case this way is not unusual and warned against a rule that would “punish” officers for obtaining a warrant when the Constitution otherwise permits investigative detention.

3) What the majority did not decide—and why that matters

The panel expressly avoided:

• Parsing the warrant language (“at the time of the search warrant execution”) as imposing a locational restriction or merely a temporal one.
• Applying the good-faith exception or inevitable-discovery doctrine.
• Assessing consent, probable cause, or other warrant exceptions as affirmative justifications for the seizure or search of the phone’s contents.

This restraint is itself consequential: the opinion suggests that in some appeals, the “scope of warrant” dispute may never be reached if the appellant does not carry the antecedent burdens associated with suppression litigation and appellate argumentation.

Impact

1) Litigation and briefing strategy in digital-evidence suppression cases

The practical lesson is that defendants challenging phone seizures/searches in the context of warrant execution must carefully:

• Identify the specific Fourth Amendment event(s): seizure of the person (stop), seizure of the device, and search of the device’s contents.
• Explain precisely why the government’s claimed authority is invalid at each step (warrant scope, lack of exception, coercion/invalid consent, etc.).
• Address alternative lawful pathways apparent from the record (e.g., reasonable suspicion for stop, consent to hand over device, subsequent probable cause).

By affirming due to an undeveloped “search” showing, the opinion signals that an appellate court may decline to referee complex exclusionary-rule debates when the appellant’s theory does not tightly connect facts, doctrine, and remedy.

2) Doctrinal tension: warrant execution vs. warrantless-stop authority

The dissent’s central concern is institutional: allowing Terry to “save” evidence obtained when officers purported to act under a warrant risks diluting the warrant’s limiting function. The majority’s counter-concern is incentive-based: discouraging officers from getting warrants if deviations—otherwise constitutionally permissible—are treated as fatal.

Future cases may have to confront the question this opinion sidestepped: when officers explicitly rely on a warrant but act beyond its constraints, can the government defend the encounter as though it were warrantless (e.g., under Terry, consent, or probable cause)? The dissent’s approach would more strictly cabin such post hoc reframing; the majority’s approach is more receptive, especially where the appellant has not preserved and developed counterarguments.

3) Precedential weight

The court noted the disposition is “not binding precedent” except under law-of-the-case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. Nonetheless, it may be cited for persuasive value. As persuasive authority, it may influence how district courts and litigants think about burden allocation and the necessity of clearly establishing a “search” (not merely a seizure or an asserted warrant defect) before suppression becomes available.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Seizure vs. Search

A seizure restricts movement or takes property (e.g., a traffic stop, taking a phone). A search intrudes on privacy (e.g., accessing data on a phone). Suppression typically requires a Fourth Amendment violation tied to the evidence.

Scope of a warrant / execution of a warrant

A warrant authorizes certain places, persons, and items to be searched/seized. “Execution” refers to how officers carry it out. Even a valid warrant can be violated by executing it outside its authorized scope (e.g., wrong place, wrong person, wrong time).

Terry stop (investigatory detention)

Under Terry v. Ohio and later cases like United States v. Hensley, officers may briefly stop and question someone based on “reasonable suspicion,” a lower standard than probable cause.

Exclusionary rule

The rule that illegally obtained evidence is generally excluded from trial (Davis v. United States). But it applies only if a Fourth Amendment violation is shown.

Good-faith exception

Under United States v. Leon, evidence may not be suppressed when officers reasonably rely on a warrant that later turns out invalid. The dissent emphasized Tenth Circuit law stating Leon does not “save an improperly executed warrant” (citing United States v. Angelos and United States v. Rowland).

Inevitable discovery

Under Nix v. Williams, evidence may be admitted if it would have been discovered anyway through lawful means. The dissent stressed it must come from an “independent, lawful police investigation” (United States v. Owens).

Burden of proof on suppression

Generally, a defendant must first show his Fourth Amendment rights were implicated, then the government must justify reasonableness or an exception. But when evidence is obtained “pursuant to a warrant,” the majority emphasized the defendant bears the full burden (United States v. Carhee).

Conclusion

United States v. Jackson is best read as a cautionary decision about suppression litigation posture: before an appellate court will engage disputes over warrant language, good faith, or inevitable discovery, the defendant must clearly establish and argue the predicate Fourth Amendment violation—particularly that an unlawful “search” occurred as tied to the evidence sought to be suppressed. The majority’s willingness to treat Terry as an independent lawful basis for the stop, and to affirm due to underdeveloped appellate argumentation, contrasts sharply with the dissent’s insistence that officers who invoke a warrant must be held to the warrant’s limits and cannot use warrantless doctrines to excuse improper execution.

Even as nonbinding precedent, the opinion’s broader significance lies in its blend of Fourth Amendment doctrine and appellate procedure: suppression outcomes may turn as much on burden allocation and argument development as on the contested meaning of warrant text.