United States v. Jonte Turner

In United States v. Turner, 125 F.4th 693 (5th Cir. 2025), the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Turner’s motion to suppress evidence that was found and seized when police officers entered Turner’s apartment and conducted a “protective sweep.”

Background: Police officers received an anonymous call reporting a gunshot and “a bunch of yelling down the stairs” at an apartment complex. An officer arrived on scene about five minutes later, but he left after finding nothing amiss.

About 20 minutes later, another woman called the police and reported a shooting in progress. The same officer went back, and he was no joined by a second officer. They spoke with the second caller, who reported hearing a gunshot in the apartment next to hers, and she showed a bullet hole in the wall between her apartment and that one.

Around that time, a different officer encountered Jonte Turner sitting outside the apartment complex, and Turner said he lived in the apartment in question but hadn’t been inside. He even allowed officers to search him, and they found nothing. Then—about 20 minutes after the second 911 call—officers learned that Turner had a criminal history, and they asked for permission to search his apartment. Turner declined, telling officers that no one was inside the apartment so there was no safety concern.

Ultimately, officers entered Turner’s apartment without his consent, more than an hour after the first 911 call and roughly 35 minutes after the second call. Upon entering, they saw two pistols and loaded magazines on a kitchen counter, and they saw a bullet hole in the wall. The officers quickly searched to confirm no one was present, and they exited the apartment 99 seconds after they entered.

Based on what they saw in the apartment, officers obtained a search warrant, and during the subsequent search, they found marijuana and “five or six firearms and other items.”

Issue 1: Was the initial entry into the apartment a Fourth Amendment violation? Held: No.

The officers’ initial entry was justified under a the “protective sweep” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. The government satisfied the “exigent-circumstances” exception based on three main factors: urgency, the possibility of danger, and the suspect(s)’ awareness “that the police are on their trail.”

Officers had received two “shots-fired” calls, and some residents reported that a woman and baby lived with Turner in his apartment, although Turner denied anyone else was present. Notably, however, Turner denied having been in the apartment, so he couldn’t have known with certainty who was inside or what had occurred. In addition, Turner asked permission to check on the apartment without officers. Even though officers entered the apartment more than an hour after the first 911 call, on these facts that lapse of time “did not reduce the exigency of the circumstances.”

Issue 2: Was the search warrant obtained based on false or misleading information and on unlawfully obtained evidence? Held: No.

First, the affidavit in support of the warrant did not contain false or misleading information. For instance, it said that officers “discovered” that someone inside the apartment had shot a firearm, even though they weren’t certain, but there were enough facts for officers to have “reasonably believed that someone in Turner’s apartment shot a bullet through the wall.” Regardless, the court noted that even if the initial entry and search had violated the Fourth Amendment, it could still apply the good-faith exception because the officer who subsequently submitted the warrant affidavit reasonably relied on what the searching officers had told him.

Second, even if the court struck all of the affidavit language about which Turner complained, the affidavit would still have established probable cause to believe that evidence of the gunshot would be found in the apartment. So even if the good-faith exception did not apply, the warrant would still be valid.

For all those reasons, the court affirmed the district court’s denial of Turner’s motion to suppress.