“Curtilage Reviewed Anew” – United States v. Ronell Moses, Jr. and the Third Circuit’s Shift to De-Novo Curtilage Review

1. Introduction

United States v. Ronell Moses, Jr., No. 23-3078 (3d Cir. July 3 2025), is a precedential decision that squarely tackles two constitutional questions regularly met in criminal litigation:

What standard of appellate review controls when a district court decides whether police have intruded into the curtilage of a home?
Does 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) violate the Second Amendment when applied to a felon who is on state probation?

The case arose from a routine traffic stop that migrated onto Moses’s residential driveway, where an officer smelled marijuana, searched the vehicle without a warrant, and discovered a stolen pistol. Moses moved to suppress the firearm (arguing a Fourth-Amendment curtilage violation) and to dismiss the indictment (arguing § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional). The district court denied both motions; Moses entered a conditional guilty plea and appealed. The Third Circuit—through Judge Bibas, joined by Judge Phipps, with Judge Ambro dissenting in part—affirmed. In doing so, the court:

Repudiated its own 1993 precedent (United States v. Benish) and held, in line with Ornelas v. United States, that curtilage determinations are reviewed de novo.
Held that the portion of Moses’s driveway where the officer stood was not curtilage.
Re-affirmed that § 922(g)(1) can constitutionally disarm felons on supervision (United States v. Quailes).

2. Summary of the Judgment

(1) Standard of Review – The panel concluded that the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Ornelas (which mandated de-novo review for probable-cause determinations) necessarily applies to the “mixed question” of curtilage. Therefore, factual findings remain reviewed for clear error, but the ultimate curtilage classification is a legal conclusion subject to plenary review.
(2) Merits of the Fourth-Amendment Claim – Applying that standard, the panel (majority) held that a spot roughly 20–40 feet up a 70-foot suburban driveway, plainly visible from the street and used primarily for parking, is not “intimately tied” to the home. Consequently, the warrantless entry and vehicle search did not transgress the Fourth Amendment.
(3) Second-Amendment Claim – Relying on its fresh en-banc authority in Quailes, the court reiterated that felons on probation or supervision fall within the Nation’s historical tradition of lawful disarmament; § 922(g)(1) is therefore constitutional both on its face and as applied to Moses.
The conviction and 40-month sentence were affirmed.

3. Analytical Commentary

3.1 Precedents Cited and Their Influence

• Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690 (1996): Set the modern template for standards of review in Fourth-Amendment mixed questions. The Third Circuit extrapolated Ornelas’s “uniformity / guidance / vagueness” rationale to curtilage.
• United States v. Benish, 5 F.3d 20 (3d Cir. 1993): Earlier Third-Circuit precedent that treated curtilage as a pure factual issue. Moses formally overrules Benish on this point.
• United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294 (1987): Provides the four-factor framework (proximity, enclosure, use, visibility) for curtilage analysis—still influential, but now expressly labelled a “heuristic.”
• Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. 586 (2018) and Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013): Illustrate the Court’s recent “property-based” focus and its willingness to decide curtilage questions without rigidly reciting Dunn.
• United States v. Quailes, 126 F.4th 215 (3d Cir. 2025): Controlling authority that post-Bruen upholds § 922(g)(1) as applied to supervised felons; foreclosed Moses’s Second-Amendment challenge.

3.2 The Court’s Legal Reasoning

a. Standard-of-Review Pivot

Mixed Question Rationale: Curtilage is a blended inquiry—fact-finding feeds a normative, legal conclusion about the scope of constitutional protection.
Uniformity & Guidance: De-novo review avoids geographically inconsistent “Fourth-Amendment islands,” and develops clearer rules for police conduct.
Alignment with Sister Circuits: The First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits already apply de-novo review; the Third Circuit eliminates an incipient split.

b. Application to Moses’s Driveway

Judge Bibas’s majority opinion employed three overlapping lenses:

Holistic / “Daily Experience” View – A mid-driveway, fully exposed space, still dozens of feet from the dwelling, lacks the intimate, domestic aura of “home life.”
Dunn Factors – Proximity mildly for Moses; enclosure neutral; uses (parking) and open view strongly against. Overall balance disfavors curtilage.
Functional Purpose of Curtilage – The officer did not gain sensory access (sight, sound, smell) to the home beyond what public vantage points already offered.

c. Second-Amendment Disposition

The panel treated the gun-rights claim summarily: Quailes confirms historical tradition supports disarming felons while on supervision; therefore, Moses’s facial and as-applied claims fail.

3.3 Impact Assessment

a. Appellate Litigation

District courts’ curtilage rulings will receive no deference on appeal, inviting more vigorous challenges and richer circuit precedent.
Defense counsel must build an evidentiary record (measurements, photographs, usage testimony) anticipating a fresh appellate review.

b. Law-Enforcement Practices

Officers in the Third Circuit may rely on Moses when approaching vehicles parked in open, front-facing portions of suburban driveways—provided they remain a substantial distance from the dwelling.
However, Moses also signals that stepping past “halfway” or beyond natural sight-lines toward a residence revives curtilage concerns; careful documentation of approach path remains prudent.

c. Constitutional Doctrine

By re-casting Dunn as a “tool” rather than a formula, the court embraces the Supreme Court’s trend toward a property-based, common-law informed analysis.
The decision underscores that Bruen has not destabilized the federal felon-in-possession statute—at least where the defendant remains under criminal justice supervision.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Curtilage: Think of curtilage as the “extended skin” of the home—porches, side yards, or tucked-away driveway corners where family life naturally unfolds and privacy expectations mirror those inside the walls.
Standard of Review: Rules telling an appellate court how hard it should look at a lower-court decision. “De novo” means “from the beginning”—no deference. “Clear error” means the lower court gets the benefit of the doubt on facts unless it is plainly wrong.
Dunn Factors: Four guideposts—distance, enclosure, use, visibility—that help courts decide if a spot belongs under the home’s Fourth-Amendment umbrella.
Automobile Exception vs. Curtilage: Police may usually search a car with probable cause on public roads. But if that car sits inside a home’s curtilage, the exception ends at the property line unless a warrant or another exception applies.
Section 922(g)(1): The federal statute barring firearm possession by anyone convicted of a felony (or other disabling offenses). Post-Bruen, courts re-examine it against historical analogues; but supervised felons remain squarely within precedents permitting disarmament.

5. Conclusion

United States v. Moses is a milestone for Fourth-Amendment jurisprudence in the Third Circuit. By elevating curtilage determinations to de-novo review, the court fosters doctrinal uniformity and offers clearer guidance to officers, litigants, and trial judges alike. Substantively, the case narrows the reach of curtilage protection over open, front-driveway spaces in suburban settings, while leaving intact more secluded nooks proximate to dwellings. On the Second-Amendment front, the opinion fortifies the post-Bruen line that felon-in-possession prosecutions remain constitutionally sound when the defendant is still under correctional supervision.

Going forward, practitioners should treat Moses as both a sword and a shield: a sword for appellate advocates seeking fresh eyes on curtilage findings, and a shield for law-enforcement officers whose intrusions stop well short of the house. In the broader constitutional dialogue, the decision exemplifies lower-court willingness to synthesize Supreme-Court signals—text, history, and reasonableness—into pragmatic, predictable rules.