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No. 10661637
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
United States v. Hunt
No. 10661637 · Decided August 27, 2025
No. 10661637·Ninth Circuit · 2025·
FlawFinder last updated this page Apr. 2, 2026
Case Details
Court
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Decided
August 27, 2025
Citation
No. 10661637
Disposition
See opinion text.
Full Opinion
FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 23-2342
D.C. No.
Plaintiff - Appellee,
3:18-cr-00475-
IM-1
v.
DONTAE LAMONT HUNT,
OPINION
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Oregon
Karin J. Immergut, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted March 31, 2025
Portland, Oregon
Filed August 27, 2025
Before: Morgan B. Christen and Kenneth K. Lee, Circuit
Judges, and Cathy Ann Bencivengo, District Judge. *
Opinion by Judge Lee
*
The Honorable Cathy Ann Bencivengo, United States District Judge
for the Southern District of California, sitting by designation.
2 USA V. HUNT
SUMMARY **
Criminal Law
The panel affirmed the district court’s orders denying
Dontae Hunt’s motion to suppress, and his recusal motion,
in a case in which Hunt was convicted of possession with
intent to distribute fentanyl analogue, conspiracy to possess
with intent to distribute and to distribute a controlled
substance, unlawful possession of firearms, and laundering
of monetary instruments.
The abandonment doctrine states that a person who
abandons property relinquishes his expectation of privacy in
that property and thus waives any Fourth Amendment
challenge.
Addressing how to apply the abandonment doctrine to
digital devices that may contain a massive trove of personal
information, the panel declined to scuttle the doctrine when
it comes to cellphones. The panel followed the time-tested
reasonable expectation of privacy principle while
considering that today’s technology allows us to keep
historically unprecedented amounts of private information in
devices. When determining a person’s intent to abandon,
courts should analyze the intent to abandon the device
separately from the intent to abandon its data.
Disagreeing with the district court’s ruling that Hunt
lacked standing to challenge the search of an iPhone he
dropped after being shot five times, the panel held that the
**
This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
USA V. HUNT 3
district court erred when it held that Hunt abandoned his
privacy interest in the phone. The record does not allow the
inference that Hunt intended to abandon the phone or its
contents when he dropped it after being shot; it shows that
he fled to seek medical help.
The panel held that Hunt’s Fourth Amendment claim
fails on the merits because federal agents obtained a warrant
and searched his phone within a reasonable period.
The panel rejected Hunt’s argument that the district court
judge should have recused herself because she served as the
U.S. Attorney in Oregon when her office earlier prosecuted
Hunt for a different crime. A reasonable person would not
question the district court judge’s impartiality.
The panel rejected Hunt’s other challenges in a
concurrently filed memorandum disposition.
COUNSEL
Suzanne Miles (argued), Assistant United States Attorney,
Criminal Appellate Chief; Peter D. Sax, Gary Y. Sussman,
and Sarah Barr, Assistant United States Attorneys; Natalie
K. Wight, United States Attorney; Office of the United
States Attorney, United States Department of Justice,
Portland, Oregon; for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Raymond D. Moss Jr. (argued) and Jonathan S. Sack,
Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC, New York,
New York, for Defendant-Appellant.
Jennifer S. Granick, American Civil Liberties Union
Foundation, San Francisco, California; Nathan F. Wessler
4 USA V. HUNT
and Brett M. Kaufman, American Civil Liberties Union
Foundation, New York, New York; Kelly Simon, American
Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon, Portland,
Oregon; Andrew Crocker and Hannah Zhao, Electronic
Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, California; Jake
Wiener, Electronic Privacy Information Center,
Washington, D.C.; for Amici Curiae American Civil
Liberties Union, ACLU of Oregon, Electronic Frontier
Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
OPINION
LEE, Circuit Judge:
The abandonment doctrine states that a person who
abandons property relinquishes his expectation of privacy in
that property and thus waives any Fourth Amendment
challenge. But how should we apply the abandonment
doctrine to digital devices that may contain a massive trove
of personal information? Appellant Dontae Hunt and amici
urge us to scuttle this doctrine when it comes to cellphones.
We decline to do so. We follow the time-tested
reasonable expectation of privacy principle while
considering that today’s technology allows us to keep
historically unprecedented amounts of private information in
devices. When determining a person’s intent to abandon,
courts should analyze the intent to abandon the device
separately from the intent to abandon its data.
We disagree with the district court’s ruling that Hunt
lacked standing to challenge the search of his black iPhone.
USA V. HUNT 5
The record does not allow the inference that Hunt intended
to abandon the phone or its contents when he dropped it after
being shot five times; it shows that he fled to seek medical
help. Hunt’s Fourth Amendment claim fails on the merits
because federal agents obtained a warrant and searched his
phone within a reasonable period.
We also reject Hunt’s argument that the district court
judge should have recused herself because she served as the
U.S. Attorney in Oregon when her office earlier prosecuted
Hunt for a different crime. A reasonable person would not
question the district court judge’s impartiality. We affirm
the conviction and the sentence. 1
BACKGROUND
I. Dontae Hunt drops his black iPhone as he gets shot
five times.
One early morning in December 2017, Dontae Hunt was
talking on his black iPhone as he strolled by his apartment
parking lot. A gunman suddenly appeared, firing a fusillade
of bullets at Hunt. Shot five times, Hunt dropped his black
iPhone and his Gucci satchel. Hunt’s girlfriend had
accompanied him and immediately called a female friend to
help take Hunt to a nearby hospital. The girlfriend took
Hunt’s satchel (which had fallen on the parking lot) but left
his black iPhone (which was near some shrubs). The two
women dropped Hunt off at the emergency room and left.
The two women, however, did not make it far. The
police pulled the pair over for a traffic violation. During the
traffic stop, an officer spotted a brown Gucci satchel bag,
1
We reject Hunt’s other challenges in a concurrently filed memorandum
disposition.
6 USA V. HUNT
covered in blood, laying on the passenger floorboard. Inside
the bag the officer found two handguns. Hunt’s girlfriend
admitted the Gucci bag belonged to Hunt but denied
knowing the bag contained the handguns.
Eugene police next went to the hospital to speak with
Hunt about the shooting. The officer found Hunt at the
hospital in “substantial pain.” Hunt refused to speak to the
officer. When the officer asked Hunt “if he wanted the
police to find out who shot him,” Hunt replied “no” and said
that “he was alright.” Before leaving the hospital, the officer
seized Hunt’s clothing and another iPhone—a white one—
as evidence associated with the shooting. The officer gave
Hunt a receipt for both the clothing and the white iPhone.
Police visited the crime scene, where they found a black
iPhone near some shrubs a short distance from the shooting
location. The police took it into evidence as part of their
investigation into the shooting. No one ever came looking
for the phone, so it remained in evidence for over two years
until an unrelated investigation into a Portland overdose
death triggered police interest in the device.
II. The federal government starts a separate drug
investigation.
The overdose investigation, conducted by the Portland
Police Bureau and several federal agencies, identified a
woman who sold counterfeit oxycodone pills to the
deceased. She declined to identify her supplier by name but
gave the police the supplier’s cellphone number. Relying on
this informant, the police obtained a geolocation warrant for
the registered cellphone owner, a woman who (the police
later discovered) worked for Hunt. In its affidavit in support
of the geolocation warrant, the police, however, failed to
disclose that this informant had a criminal history of lying to
USA V. HUNT 7
the police. Nonetheless, the geolocation warrant ultimately
yielded additional evidence, leading the police to focus on
Hunt and to conduct an in-person surveillance of him. The
police noted that Hunt engaged in peculiar behavior common
to drug dealers trying to evade detection from law
enforcement. For example, he made well over a dozen
Walmart cash transfers using different phone numbers. The
mother of his children rented seven cars over four months,
and Hunt drove a Chevy Silverado paid for in cash by a
person with no links to Hunt. The investigation also turned
up evidence of Hunt’s past drug dealing convictions. And a
second confidential informant, with no criminal record or
known relationship to the first informant, told police that
Hunt continued to sell drugs and “store[] cash at residences
belonging to female acquaintances.”
Federal agents used this information to obtain a premises
search warrant for three residences associated with Hunt,
including a home on Portland’s Dekum Street. During the
raid on the Dekum residence, police found counterfeit
fentanyl pills, firearms, and Hunt—barricaded in a bathroom
and allegedly flushing pills down the toilet.
III. The government uses data from Hunt’s black
iPhone to help convict him on drug-trafficking
and other charges.
The story comes full circle when federal agents filed an
affidavit in January 2020 to search several electronic
devices, including the black iPhone found at the scene of
Hunt’s shooting and held by the local police. At the time,
federal agents still lacked confirmation that the black iPhone
belonged to Hunt, though they suspected so because police
“found [it] on the ground where [Hunt] was shot.” The
8 USA V. HUNT
search of the black iPhone produced more evidence of
Hunt’s drug dealing activities.
Based on evidence from the searches of the Dekum
residence and the black iPhone, prosecutors charged Hunt
with several crimes, including possession with intent to
distribute fentanyl analogue, conspiracy to possess with
intent to distribute a controlled substance, unlawful
possession of a firearm, and laundering of monetary
instruments. The case eventually landed on Judge
Immergut’s docket.
Before the trial, Hunt moved for Judge Immergut’s
recusal. Over fifteen years earlier, Judge Immergut had
served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon when
that office prosecuted Hunt for unrelated charges. In that
case, the district court had sentenced Hunt to twenty years,
but his sentence was commuted after thirteen years. Judge
Immergut declined to recuse herself. She explained, “I have
no personal bias or prejudice against Defendant Hunt. Nor
do I have any personal recollection of Defendant Hunt or the
facts underlying his prior 2005 conviction.” Judge
Immergut presided over the trial, which ultimately led to
Hunt’s conviction.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
This court reviews de novo a district court’s denial of a
motion to suppress. United States v. Yang, 958 F.3d 851,
857 (9th Cir. 2020). We review the district court’s factual
findings, including those factual findings related to
abandonment, for clear error. See id. at 858; see also United
States v. Nordling, 804 F.2d 1466, 1469 (9th Cir. 1986). For
recusal orders, we review for abuse of discretion. United
States v. McTiernan, 695 F.3d 882, 891 (9th Cir. 2012).
USA V. HUNT 9
DISCUSSION
I. Judge Immergut did not abuse discretion in
denying the recusal motion.
As a threshold matter, we must decide whether Judge
Immergut should have recused herself because she served as
the U.S. Attorney in Oregon when that office prosecuted
Hunt in his earlier 2005 criminal proceedings. We reject
Hunt’s argument that she should have done so.
A federal judge must “disqualify [her]self in any
proceeding in which [her] impartiality might reasonably be
questioned.” 28 U.S.C. § 455(a); see also United States v.
Holland, 519 F.3d 909, 913 (9th Cir. 2008) (quoting from
id.). This provision requires judges “to avoid even the
appearance of partiality.” Liljeberg v. Health Servs.
Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847, 860 (1988) (quoting Health
Servs. Acquisition Corp. v. Liljeberg, 796 F.2d 796, 802 (5th
Cir. 1986)). We thus require recusal when “a reasonable
person with knowledge of all the facts would conclude that
the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
Holland, 519 F.3d at 913 (quotation omitted).
Our circuit precedent does not establish many bright-line
rules and requires judges to take a “fact-driven” approach
that “may turn on the subtleties” of each case when applying
the recusal standard. Id. For example, in United States v.
Silver, we applied this fact-driven approach to find that a
judge did not need to recuse himself without a “factual
connection or relationship between the [] case [before him]
and [a ten-year-old] mail fraud” investigation into the
defendant that began during the judge’s tenure as the United
States Attorney. 245 F.3d 1075, 1079 (9th Cir. 2001). In
reaching that holding, Silver did not establish a rigid rule that
a judge can avoid recusal simply because the prior case lacks
10 USA V. HUNT
a factual relationship to the case before the judge. See id.
Rather, both the age of the earlier investigation and the fact
that the judge only needed to consider the prior case for
sentencing purposes contributed to our determination that a
reasonable person would not doubt that judge’s impartiality.
Id. at 1080.
In contrast, we did impose a bright-line rule in United
States v. Arnpriester that a judge cannot decide the same
case in which the judge participated in or supervised as the
United States Attorney. 37 F.3d 466, 467 (9th Cir. 1994).
We found categorically that a reasonable person would
question a judge’s impartiality in any such situation. See id.
The facts of Hunt’s case convince us that Judge
Immergut did not abuse her discretion in holding that a
reasonable person would not question her impartiality. First,
as in Silver, Hunt’s current case has “no factual connection
or relationship” with his prior prosecution. See 245 F.3d at
1079. Second, over fifteen years passed between Hunt’s first
prosecution and this second case. That stretches beyond the
ten-year gap in Silver. Id. at 1080. Third, Judge Immergut
served as the United States Attorney, and not as a line
prosecutor. Many similar drug and felon-in-possession
prosecutions likely passed through her office, and Judge
Immergut, as the U.S. Attorney, likely was not directly
involved in these commonplace criminal prosecutions.
Fourth, Judge Immergut stated she did not have “any
personal recollection” of Hunt’s 2005 case and has “no
personal bias or prejudice” against him. These facts would
not lead a reasonable person to think that Judge Immergut
had any bias against Hunt. We thus next address Hunt’s
Fourth Amendment claim.
USA V. HUNT 11
II. Hunt has standing to make a Fourth Amendment
challenge because he did not abandon his privacy
interest in the black iPhone.
The district court erred when it held that Hunt abandoned
the black iPhone and thus lacked standing to challenge the
search of the iPhone’s data. We, however, reject Hunt and
amici’s invitation to jettison the abandonment doctrine for
digital data. Rather, we follow the reasonable expectation of
privacy framework set by the Supreme Court and adapt the
abandonment doctrine to account for the unique
characteristics of cellphone data. That approach leads us to
hold that the abandonment doctrine can apply to cellphone
data but courts should analyze the physical phone and its
data separately to determine whether the circumstances
allow the conclusion that there was an intent to abandon
either.
A. We apply the expectation-of-privacy principle
while considering the unique nature of digital
devices in applying the abandonment doctrine.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees to the people the
right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . .”
U.S. CONST. amend. IV. The Framers adopted this
amendment to guard against the type of abuses they
experienced under British rule: It was a “response to the
reviled ‘general warrants’ and ‘writs of assistance’ of the
colonial era, which allowed British officers to rummage
through homes in an unrestrained search for evidence of
criminal activity.” Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296,
303 (2018) (quoting Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 403
(2014)). The Fourth Amendment enshrines the founding
generation’s goals to protect “‘the privacies of life’ against
12 USA V. HUNT
‘arbitrary power’” and “to place obstacles in the way of a too
permeating police surveillance.” Id. (citations omitted).
But as digital “technology has enhanced the
Government’s capacity to encroach upon” traditionally
private areas of life, the judiciary has sought to preserve
“that degree of privacy against government that existed
when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.” Carpenter, 585
U.S. at 305 (citing Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34
(2001)). To that end, the Supreme Court warns that “[w]hen
confronting new concerns wrought by digital technology,”
courts must be “careful not to uncritically extend existing
precedents.” Carpenter, 585 U.S. at 318.
We follow the model set by the Supreme Court in Riley,
Carpenter, Jones, and Kyllo and apply reasonable
expectation-of-privacy principles to a world where new
technology makes possible previously unimaginable and
objectionable invasions of privacy. 2 As one leading Fourth
Amendment scholar has argued, the Supreme Court’s
framework for analyzing digital devices advances the
“original public meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Orin
Kerr, The Digital Fourth Amendment 54–56 (2025). It does
so by preserving the same balance between the citizenry’s
right to privacy and the government’s power to investigate
that existed in the early republic. See id. at 57. The founding
2
See Riley, 573 U.S. at 385–401 (applying the traditional warrant
exception test to cellphone data); Carpenter, 585 U.S. at 313 (applying
the traditional expectation of privacy in the “whole of [one’s] physical
movements” to cell-site data); United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 402,
411 (2012) (“What we apply is an 18th-century guarantee against
unreasonable searches” to find attaching a GPS tracking advice to a car
counts as a search); Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 34–35 (applying the traditional
expectation of privacy standard in holding that the use of thermal
imagining technology can count as a search of a home).
USA V. HUNT 13
generation always understood the Fourth Amendment to
protect a certain degree of privacy and not merely a specific
set of rules. Id.; see Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 34–35.
The Supreme Court in Riley highlighted the unique
nature of digital devices containing massive amounts of
personal data. 573 U.S. 373. The police officers there
searched cellphones right after arresting the suspects, and
justified these warrantless searches under the search
incident-to-arrest exception. The Court, however, refused to
extend this warrantless search exception to cellphones, in
large part because it recognized the “substantially greater
individual privacy interests” associated with the private and
detailed data contained in cellphones as opposed to “a brief
physical search.” Id. at 374. 3 That greater privacy interest
stems from the vast quantity and intimate quality of the data
collected throughout the day and over the years. Id. at 393.
As the Court wryly remarked, “the proverbial visitor from
Mars might conclude [cellphones] were an important feature
of human anatomy,” given that they “are now such a
pervasive and insistent part of daily life.” Id. at 385.
Cellphones can easily contain over a decade’s worth of
private photographs, personal text messages to family and
friends, every email sent to business associates, voicemails
from years ago, and call logs documenting every call
received or dialed. The various apps on a phone can also
contain a trove of personal information. For example, a
3
The Court also reasoned that rationales justifying a warrantless search
incident to arrest—the risk of a suspect hiding a weapon in, say, a satchel
or reaching out to destroy evidence in that satchel—do not apply to
digital data. See 573 U.S. at 386. The Court, however, recognized
exigent circumstances could still allow a warrantless search of digital
devices. Id. at 391.
14 USA V. HUNT
search of web-browsing history may reveal intimate details
of “an individual’s private interests or concerns.” Id. at 395.
A medical-related app may disclose private health
information or prescription history. And a financial app can
divulge purchases made on a credit card, bank balances,
credit scores, and an individual’s net worth. Indeed, a
cellphone’s ability to store vast data likely allows the
government to learn more about the cellphone’s owner than
would a search of the person’s entire home or every piece of
mail received. Id. at 396–97.
In our case, we must decide how to apply the
abandonment doctrine—a well-established exception to the
Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against a warrantless
search and seizure—to cellphones. The abandonment
doctrine holds that a person forfeits a reasonable expectation
of privacy by voluntarily abandoning property. United
States v. Fisher, 56 F.4th 673, 686 (9th Cir. 2022).
Abandonment goes to intent. Nordling, 804 F.2d at 1469. A
person shows an intent to abandon a privacy interest when,
given the totality of the circumstances, by “words, acts or
other objective indications, [the] person has relinquished a
reasonable expectation of privacy in the property at the time
of the search or seizure.” Id. (citation modified). We ask
what “words, acts or other objective indications” would
reveal a person’s intent to voluntarily abandon any
expectation of privacy in the property. See id.
Following the Supreme Court’s framework, we apply the
abandonment doctrine to cellphones while accounting for
the unique aspects of cellphone data. Someone who loses
her cellphone through theft or negligence likely does not
intend to release to the public details of her personal life any
more than someone who loses a house key intends to invite
the public to rummage through her home. See Riley, 573
USA V. HUNT 15
U.S. at 397. That house key analogy proves particularly
instructive when thinking about abandonment because the
house key and the house provide the closest pre-digital
functional analogue to the cell phone and its data. See Kerr,
supra at 65. The analogy confirms that just as courts
historically would apply the reasonable expectation of
privacy principle separately to a house key and the contents
of a house, courts today may need to distinguish a digital
device from the data it contains to preserve the degree of
privacy that existed at the time of the Fourth Amendment’s
adoption. Id. Based on the specific facts of each case, courts
should analyze the intent to abandon the device separately
from the intent to abandon its data—and not reflexively
conflate the two.
In Fisher, the Ninth Circuit’s most analogous case, two
defendants hid a cellphone and two hard drives with
incriminating information between the insulation and wood
framing of an attic. 56 F.4th at 681. While in custody, the
defendants sold the house with the devices still hidden in the
attic. Id. The court held that the defendants had abandoned
the devices when they did not recover them “before the home
was sold.” Id. at 687 (emphasis in original). Having
intentionally left their devices in the home and then sold the
house knowing that the devices remained there, the
defendants abandoned the devices and their data. Id.
B. Hunt did not abandon the black iPhone or its
data.
Hunt’s actions do not suggest an intent to abandon his
black iPhone or its data. The district court committed clear
error by finding otherwise. The serious injuries caused by
the shooting—and the traumatic and chaotic atmosphere
after—suggest that Hunt likely dropped the black iPhone and
16 USA V. HUNT
did not intend to leave it behind. Considering the
circumstances, Hunt likely only intended to get medical
attention and flee from the shooter as soon as possible
without thinking or even knowing what happened to the
phone. This is distinguishable from the situation in Fisher,
where the Ninth Circuit found that the defendants—who sold
their house even though they knew that it contained a
cellphone and two hard drives in its attic—forfeited their
privacy interest in the devices and their content. See 56 F.4th
at 687.
The district court acknowledged that Hunt “may have
dropped the phone in the course of being shot or fleeing,”
but reasoned that after the shooting, Hunt made no “apparent
effort to secure the black iPhone.” But the iPhone was later
found in the bushes and not plainly visible. Most people
would not scour the bushes after a shooting to find a phone
(assuming that Hunt even realized he had lost or dropped the
phone after being shot).
The government also argues that Hunt abandoned the
black iPhone and its data by not trying to retrieve the phone
from the police. That is an important fact in assessing intent,
but there is no indication that Hunt realized that he left the
missing phone at the shooting scene for at least three
reasons. First, Hunt claims to not remember the shooting, so
he might not have known that he used the black iPhone at
the time and that the police had it. Second, the police
officers seized the white iPhone from Hunt’s person and
gave him a receipt for it, such that Hunt could have
reasonably expected the police to give him a receipt for the
black iPhone if they also had it. The police, however, did
not provide a receipt for the black iPhone. Third, Hunt
reasonably could have concluded that someone other than
the police picked up a valuable iPhone in a public parking
USA V. HUNT 17
lot. We thus hold that the district court clearly erred in
finding that Hunt intended to abandon the black iPhone, and
it logically follows that he did not intend to abandon the data
in it.
Even if we assume that Hunt had abandoned his black
iPhone by not trying to retrieve it from the police, we cannot
conclude that he also intended to abandon the data in his
phone without examining all the relevant facts. Unlike the
defendants in Fisher, Hunt did not willingly sell or give
away his black iPhone with all its personal data still intact.
See 56 F.4th at 687. Rather, he simply lost the phone during
a shooting. Though he did not follow up with the police, the
record does not establish that he had reason to suspect the
police collected the black iPhone from the crime scene. We
need not conduct a separate analysis of the stored data
because we hold that Hunt did not abandon his phone.
III. The government did not violate Hunt’s Fourth
Amendment rights because it obtained a warrant to
search the phone and did not hold it for an
unreasonable period.
While Hunt has standing to challenge the search of the
black iPhone’s data, his argument fails on the merits.
Federal agents obtained a warrant to search the iPhone’s
data. So Hunt can only complain that the government
violated the Fourth Amendment by seizing the data for an
unreasonably long period. This argument falls flat because
the Eugene police acted reasonably by collecting the iPhone
as evidence related to the shooting investigation and by
holding it until someone claimed it.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches
and seizures. Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 61 (1992)
(citation modified). The Court, however, has recognized
18 USA V. HUNT
that “special law enforcement needs, diminished
expectations of privacy, minimal intrusions, or the like” may
make a warrantless seizure reasonable. Illinois v. McArthur,
531 U.S. 326, 330 (2001). But “a seizure lawful at its
inception can nevertheless violate the Fourth Amendment
because its manner of execution unreasonably infringes
possessory interests.” United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S.
109, 124 (1984). To remain reasonable, a seizure must last
“no longer than reasonably necessary for the police, acting
with diligence, to obtain the warrant” to search the property.
McArthur, 531 U.S. at 332; see also United States v.
Sullivan, 797 F.3d 623, 633 (9th Cir. 2015).
To decide whether a prolonged seizure remained
reasonable, we balance “the nature and quality of the
intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests
against the importance of the governmental interests alleged
to justify the intrusion.” Sullivan, 797 F.3d at 633 (citation
omitted). The balance here favors the government.
Given that Hunt lost his iPhone and never sought to
recover it, the Eugene police’s intrusion upon his possessory
interest was minimal at best. See id. (finding owner’s
inability to use a device reduced his possessory interest in
the device).
On the other side of the ledger, the Eugene police had a
legitimate law enforcement reason to seize the black iPhone
as evidence for its investigation into the shooting. While the
iPhone might have belonged to a random passerby, its
proximity to the site of Hunt’s shooting gave police a basis
to suspect the iPhone could help identify the shooter, an
accomplice, or a witness. The police thus acted reasonably
by seizing the iPhone during the initial sweep of the parking
lot.
USA V. HUNT 19
Moreover, police had a legitimate law enforcement
reason to retain the iPhone after its initial collection simply
because it represented lost property with no identified owner
to whom the police could return it. Multiple state supreme
court cases note that the police often retain lost or mislaid
property in secure locations until the authorities can identify
the owner. See State v. Hamilton, 67 P.3d 871, 875 (Mont.
2003); State v. Ching, 678 P.2d 1088, 1093 (Haw. 1984); see
also State v. Kealey, 907 P.2d 319, 325 (Wash. Ct. App.
1995), as amended on denial of reconsideration (Feb. 26,
1996). Here, the record does not suggest that the Eugene
police did anything with the black iPhone other than hold it
in evidence.
CONCLUSION
We AFFIRM the district court’s orders denying Hunt’s
motion to suppress and his recusal motion.
Plain English Summary
FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No.
Key Points
01FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No.
02Immergut, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted March 31, 2025 Portland, Oregon Filed August 27, 2025 Before: Morgan B.
03Lee, Circuit Judges, and Cathy Ann Bencivengo, District Judge.
04* Opinion by Judge Lee * The Honorable Cathy Ann Bencivengo, United States District Judge for the Southern District of California, sitting by designation.
Frequently Asked Questions
FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No.
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