Court Opinion

ID: 9377330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-07 17:00:47.577381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:13.521386
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 21-1149     Document: 010110822581       Date Filed: 03/07/2023    Page: 1
                                                                                  FILED
                                                                      United States Court of Appeals
                                       PUBLISH                                Tenth Circuit

                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        March 7, 2023

                                                                         Christopher M. Wolpert
                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                          Clerk of Court
                          _________________________________

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

        Plaintiff - Appellee,

  v.                                                          No. 21-1149

  TYRELL BRAXTON,

        Defendant - Appellant.
                       _________________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                              for the District of Colorado
                           (D.C. No. 1:20-CR-00037-RM-1)
                        _________________________________

 Meredith Esser, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Denver, Colorado (Virginia L. Grady,
 Federal Public Defender, with her on the briefs), for Defendant - Appellant.

 Wayne Paugh, Assistant United States Attorney, Denver, Colorado (Cole Finegan, United
 States Attorney, with him on the brief), for Plaintiff - Appellee.
                         _________________________________

 Before HARTZ, SEYMOUR, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.
                   _________________________________

 MORITZ, Circuit Judge.
                     _________________________________

       Law enforcement searched Tyrell Braxton’s backpack after arresting him and

 found a gun. Facing several criminal charges, Braxton moved to suppress the gun.

 The government conceded that the warrantless search was not a valid search incident

 to arrest. But it invoked the inevitable-discovery doctrine to avoid suppression of the
Appellate Case: 21-1149     Document: 010110822581         Date Filed: 03/07/2023       Page: 2

 illegally obtained evidence, contending that—assuming the illegal search incident to

 arrest had not occurred—law enforcement would have validly impounded the

 backpack as a matter of community caretaking and then searched it pursuant to a

 standardized policy mandating inventory searches of seized property. The district

 court agreed with the government and denied the motion to suppress.

        But the government’s stated community-caretaking interest in safeguarding

 Braxton’s personal property by impounding it is significantly undercut by the

 presence of an individual who arrived on the scene at Braxton’s request and

 repeatedly asked to take possession of the backpack throughout the arrest process.

 The government’s explanation for why the officers could have properly refused this

 individual’s requests is not persuasive. Nor is it dispositive, on these facts, that

 Braxton himself did not ask the officers to turn the backpack over. Thus, the

 government failed to meet its burden to show that law enforcement would have

 validly retained the backpack, and the inevitable-discovery doctrine does not apply to

 excuse application of the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence discovered during

 the illegal search. We accordingly reverse the district court’s order refusing to

 suppress the gun and remand for further proceedings.

                                       Background

        A Denver police officer monitoring a camera installed in a high-crime area

 saw Braxton exchange drugs for cash. Officers arrived on the scene and arrested

 Braxton. As the district court noted, the details of the arrest are not in dispute

 because one officer’s bodycam captured the arrest on video.

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       The video shows that at the moment he was handcuffed, Braxton was wearing

 a black backpack with a repeating “Emporio Armani” design on it, which the officers

 removed and placed on the sidewalk. One officer then patted Braxton down and

 discovered suspected crack cocaine and $183 in cash in Braxton’s pockets. During

 the patdown, Braxton called out, “Hey, get my girl, my girl. Tan! Tell her to come

 here!” Supp. R. at 1:51–1:56.

       Less than 30 seconds later, a woman—later identified as Braxton’s girlfriend,

 Tanyrah Gay—approached the officers, and Braxton instructed her, “Get the money

 so you can bond me out.” Id. at 2:18–2:23. Gay then asked the officers, “Can I get his

 bag?” Id. at 2:24–2:26. The officers responded in the negative. Gay stood by for a

 little over a minute while one officer continued searching Braxton. Then, as one

 officer walked away with Braxton and another officer picked up the backpack, Gay

 again asked, “I can’t take my backpack?” Id. at 3:38–3:40. The officer immediately

 responded with a curt “nope.” Id. at 3:40–3:41.

       Gay followed as one officer escorted Braxton to a patrol car and another

 carried the backpack. As Braxton was getting into the patrol car, he said, “She needs

 the money, man.” Id. at 4:10–4:12. Gay then said, “I’m in a hotel. Please give me the

 money at least. I’m in a hotel.” Id. at 4:13–4:18. Before Gay could finish, the answer

 again was an immediate “nope.” Id. at 4:16. Gay then asked if the officers would

 write her number down; they told her they would “get to that in a second.” Id. at

 4:38–4:40.

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       One officer placed the backpack on the hood of the patrol car and searched it.

 As the officer dug through the backpack’s contents, he found a loaded gun with a

 pink handle. Before the officer completed the search of the backpack, Gay asked him

 if she could retrieve her bus pass and identification from the backpack. The officer

 said they could “talk about that in a second.” Id. at 7:15–7:16. About 20 seconds

 later, after the officer placed the gun into an evidence bag and into the front of the

 patrol vehicle, the bodycam footage ends.

       Based on this event, the government charged Braxton with possession of a

 weapon in furtherance of drug trafficking, possession of crack cocaine with intent to

 distribute, and felon in possession of a weapon. Braxton moved to suppress the gun,

 arguing that the warrantless search of his backpack was not justified as a search

 incident to arrest under this court’s recent precedent. See United States v. Knapp, 917

 F.3d 1161 (10th Cir. 2019) (holding that search of arrestee’s purse was not justified

 as search incident to arrest because arrestee could not access weapons or destroy

 evidence within purse at time of arrest).

       The government conceded that the search was not a valid search incident to

 arrest under Knapp. But it argued that the gun should not be suppressed because law

 enforcement would have inevitably discovered it after impounding the backpack and

 conducting an inventory search. That is, the government reasoned, had the officer not

 searched the backpack at the scene, he would have been obligated to take the

 backpack to the station to prevent theft and to protect the community in case the

 backpack contained dangerous items. And once at the station, the government

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 continued, standard policy required an inventory search that would have revealed the

 gun. The government supported its position with testimony from the officer who

 searched Braxton’s backpack.

          The district court agreed with the government and denied the motion to

 suppress. Braxton eventually entered a conditional guilty plea to possessing a firearm

 in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, and the district court sentenced him to 60

 months in prison and three years of supervised release.1

          Braxton now appeals the suppression ruling.

                                          Analysis

          Our review of the overall reasonableness of a search or seizure is de novo,

 though we accept the district court’s factual findings unless clearly erroneous and

 view the evidence in the light most favorable to the district court’s findings. Knapp,

 917 F.3d at 1165; see also United States v. Cook, 599 F.3d 1208, 1213 (10th Cir.

 2010).

          “The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’

 means that police generally cannot conduct a search or make a seizure absent a

 warrant.” United States v. Kendall, 14 F.4th 1116, 1122 (10th Cir. 2021) (citation

 omitted) (quoting U.S. Const. amend IV). “A warrantless search or seizure is

 reasonable only ‘if it falls within a specific exception to the warrant requirement.’”

          1
         Braxton also pleaded guilty to a separate count of felon in possession of a
 firearm based on events that occurred on a different date. The district court imposed a
 consecutive 12-month sentence for this additional count (and a concurrent three-year
 term of supervised release), bringing Braxton’s prison sentence to 72 months in total.

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 Id. at 1121–22 (quoting United States v. Venezia, 995 F.3d 1170, 1174 (10th Cir.

 2021)). These exceptions include, among others, searches incident to arrest, searches

 and seizures justified by a noninvestigatory community-caretaking rationale, and

 searches conducted for administrative inventory purposes. See Knapp, 917 F.3d at

 1165 (discussing exception for searches incident to arrest); United States v. Neugin,

 958 F.3d 924, 931 (10th Cir. 2020) (explaining community-caretaking exception);

 Kendall, 14 F.4th at 1124 (describing exception for inventory searches). It is the

 government’s burden to establish that an exception to the warrant requirement

 applies. Neugin, 958 F.3d at 930.

       If law enforcement searches or seizes without a warrant or applicable warrant

 exception and thus “obtains evidence th[r]ough an unconstitutional search, the

 evidence is inadmissible under the exclusionary rule.” Id. at 931. But like the warrant

 requirement, the exclusionary rule is also subject to some exceptions, one of which is

 the inevitable-discovery doctrine. Id. at 932. Under this doctrine, the exclusionary

 rule does not apply if the government can prove by a preponderance that “the

 evidence inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means.” Id. (quoting

 United States v. Souza, 223 F.3d 1197, 1202 (10th Cir. 2000)). The parties agree that

 the inevitable-discovery doctrine requires a counterfactual inquiry into what “would

 have” happened under lawful circumstances.2 Id. At the same time, “‘[i]n

       2
          Because we rule for Braxton on another ground, we need not address his
 argument that law enforcement violated the Fourth Amendment because the officer
 testified that he did search the backpack with an investigatory motive, under the facts
 as they occurred.

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 determining whether the government has met its burden of proof, we consider

 “demonstrated historical facts,” not “speculative elements.”’” Id. (quoting United

 States v. White, 326 F.3d 1135, 1138 (10th Cir. 2003)).

        Here, the government concedes that the warrantless search of the backpack

 was not justified by the warrant exception for searches incident to arrest. But it

 contends that the inevitable-discovery exception to the exclusionary rule should

 apply because the officers would have eventually conducted a valid warrantless

 search of the backpack via two other exceptions to the warrant requirement:

 community caretaking and inventory. Specifically, the government argues that the

 officers would have impounded the backpack under a community-caretaking

 rationale to protect Braxton’s property rather than leaving it vulnerable to theft on the

 public sidewalk where Braxton was arrested. See, e.g., Venezia, 995 F.3d at 1180

 (“Certainly, an abandoned vehicle on a public highway may be at risk of theft or

 vandalism, and thus may be impounded under the community-caretaking doctrine.”).

 And it further contends that once the backpack was delivered to the police station,

 law-enforcement policy mandated an inventory search to further protect Braxton’s

 property. See, e.g., Kendall, 14 F.4th at 1124 (explaining that inventory “searches

 serve several administrative purposes, including ‘to protect an owner’s property

 while it is in the custody of the police, to insure against claims of lost, stolen, or

 vandalized property, and to guard the police from danger’” (quoting Colorado v.

 Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 372 (1987))).

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       The latter point is not in dispute—as the district court concluded, the parties

 do not “quarrel[] with the need or appropriateness of the inventory” search once the

 backpack reached the police station. R. vol. 3, 147. Instead, this case turns on

 whether the officers would have validly impounded Braxton’s backpack in the

 absence of the illegal search incident to arrest. See United States v. Ibarra, 955 F.2d

 1405, 1410 (10th Cir. 1992) (finding no inevitable discovery because although

 inventory search was valid, “no inventory of the contents of defendant’s vehicle

 could have been conducted but for the unlawful impoundment of the vehicle”). On

 impoundment, the district court concluded that the officers were “entitled to take

 physical possession of” the backpack “on a community[-]caretaker . . . basis.” R. vol.

 3, 146. The district court dismissed the relevance of Gay’s presence and her repeated

 requests to take possession of the backpack, emphasizing that Braxton never asked

 the officers to give the backpack to Gay and reasoning that to the officers at the time,

 the relationship between Braxton and Gay was unclear.

       On appeal, Braxton argues that the government did not meet its burden of

 showing that officers would have impounded the backpack as a matter of community

 caretaking. We have had many recent opportunities to examine community-

 caretaking impoundments, albeit in the context of vehicles rather than personal

 property like Braxton’s backpack. See Kendall, 14 F.4th at 1122 (citing three recent

 published cases). Yet the principles from these vehicle-impoundment cases are

 relevant in the context of personal property. See Knapp, 917 F.3d at 1168 (noting that

 principles articulated in vehicle-impoundment caselaw “apply more broadly” and

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 using such caselaw to review search of defendant’s purse); United States v. Perea,

 986 F.2d 633, 643 (2d Cir. 1993) (noting that for arrests that do not occur at

 individual’s home, “officers may ‘impound the personal effects that are with him [or

 her] at the time to ensure the safety of those effects or to remove nuisances from the

 area’” (quoting Cabbler v. Superintendent, Va. State Penitentiary, 528 F.2d 1142,

 1146 (4th Cir. 1975))). Indeed, the parties also frame their arguments around our

 vehicle-impoundment caselaw, in particular United States v. Sanders, 796 F.3d 1241

 (10th Cir. 2015).

       Sanders held that impoundment of a vehicle from private property must be

 “justified by both [1] a standardized policy and [2] a reasonable, non[]pretextual

 community-caretaking rationale.” Id. at 1248. We begin (and end) our analysis with

 the second prong.3 On that prong, Sanders set out a nonexclusive list of factors

 relevant to determining whether “a reasonable and legitimate, non[]pretextual

 community-caretaking rationale” exists, including:

       (1) whether the vehicle is on public or private property; (2) if on private
       property, whether the property owner has been consulted; (3) whether

       3
          The government contends that Sanders’s first prong does not apply here
 because we are on public—not private—property. See Kendall, 14 F.4th at 1122 (“In
 one of our recent cases, however, we clarified that the first Sanders prong is ‘specific
 to private property impoundments.’” (quoting Venezia, 995 F.3d at 1178)). But
 Braxton asserts in reply that the government waived such argument by not raising it
 below. See United States v. Martinez, 643 F.3d 1292, 1298 (10th Cir. 2011) (“We
 will not consider a suppression argument raised for the first time on appeal absent a
 showing of good cause for why it was not raised before the trial court.”). In any
 event, we need not address these issues here because even if the government did not
 waive its first-prong argument and its argument is correct, it still needs to satisfy the
 second Sanders prong; and the same is true if the government did waive its first-
 prong argument or if such argument is incorrect.

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        an alternative to impoundment exists (especially another person capable
        of driving the vehicle); (4) whether the vehicle is implicated in a crime;
        and (5) whether the vehicle’s owner and/or driver have consented to the
        impoundment.

  Id. at 1250. These factors help guide the overall question for Fourth Amendment

  purposes: whether, in the counterfactual world of our inevitable-discovery inquiry,

  the seizure of Braxton’s backpack would have been reasonable. See id. (“Protection

  against unreasonable impoundments . . . is part and parcel of the Fourth

  Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures.”).

        Four of these factors apply in a relatively straightforward manner here. First,

  the arrest took place on public property, so the backpack itself was also on public

  property. See id. Braxton concedes that this fact would weigh in favor of a reasonable

  community-caretaking rationale for impoundment because the officers obviously

  could not have left the backpack on the sidewalk. See Kendall, 14 F.4th at 1123

  (weighing this factor in favor of reasonable community-caretaking rationale for

  impoundment because it was not “a reasonable option for officers to leave the vehicle

  where it was,” parked on public street). Relatedly, the public location renders the

  second Sanders factor—whether the owner of private property has been consulted—

  simply not relevant here. See id. (omitting second factor from discussion where arrest

  took place on public property). On the fourth and fifth other factors, the government

  concedes that the backpack here was not implicated in a crime and that Braxton did

  not consent to the impoundment. See 796 F.3d at 1250.These two factors accordingly

  would weigh against a reasonable community-caretaking rationale for impoundment.

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  See United States v. Woodard, 5 F.4th 1148, 1158 (10th Cir. 2021) (weighing these

  factors against valid impoundment).

        Largely agreeing on these four factors, the parties center their disagreement on

  the third Sanders factor, the existence of an alternative to impoundment. See 796

  F.3d at 1250. On this point, recall that Gay appeared less than 30 seconds after

  Braxton called out for his “girl,” Gay twice asked to take the backpack, and the

  officers curtly rejected her requests almost before she could finish her requests. R.

  vol. 3, 143. Braxton contends that giving the backpack to Gay would have been an

  alternative to impoundment and argues that this factor weighs heavily against a

  reasonable community-caretaking rationale for impoundment. In response, the

  government argues that giving the backpack to Gay would not have been an

  alternative to impoundment for two reasons: (1) Braxton did not ask the officers to do

  so and (2) nothing in the record suggests that Braxton and Gay had a relationship that

  warranted giving his backpack to her.

        As to the government’s first point, it is true that Braxton did not expressly ask

  the officers to give Gay the backpack. But we have stated that “[t]he proper inquiry

  under the third factor is ‘whether an alternative to impoundment exists’ and is not

  focused on who suggested that alternative.” Venezia, 995 F.3d at 1181 (emphasis

  added) (quoting Sanders, 796 F.3d at 1250). Braxton’s failure to directly ask the

  officers to give the backpack to Gay is therefore not dispositive. It is just one fact

  among many, and we do not find it particularly meaningful in light of Gay’s physical

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  presence at the scene and repeated requests to take the backpack. Given these facts, a

  satisfactory alternative to impoundment may have existed.

        As to the government’s second point, the record does not support the notion

  that Braxton and Gay’s relationship negated the plausibility of this alternative. Gay

  appeared less than 30 seconds after Braxton called out for his “girl,” and the officer

  who testified at the suppression hearing said that he assumed the person who arrived

  in response to Braxton’s request was, in fact, the person Braxton had asked for—his

  “girl.” R. vol. 3, 143. Other facts support the conclusion that the two had a

  relationship close enough to merit giving her the backpack: Braxton asked Gay to

  bail him out; Braxton asked the officers to give Gay the money they found on him;

  Gay repeatedly asked to take the backpack; Gay at one point referred to the backpack

  as hers, which suggests that Braxton was carrying it for her; Gay remained nearby

  during the entire arrest process; Gay asked the police to write her number down; and

  Gay told the officers her bus pass and identification were in the backpack. These

  facts suggest that, at a minimum, reasonable officers dealing with the backpack in a

  lawful manner would have inquired further about whether they should give the

  backpack to Gay, either by asking Braxton if he wanted Gay to take the backpack or

  by inquiring into their relationship.4

        4
           The government asserts that the district court made a factual finding that Gay
  was essentially “a stranger” to Braxton. R. vol. 3, 149. But as Braxton points out in
  reply, the district court’s comment on this point was less than clear. The district court
  referred to Gay as “a stranger,” but not necessarily a stranger to Braxton; it could
  have been pointing out that Gay was a stranger to the officers. Id. Because of this
  ambiguity and because this case involves undisputed video evidence of the arrest—in

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        Importantly, the officer who testified at the suppression hearing provided scant

  explanation for why—in the counterfactual scenario in which he was not going to

  search the backpack incident to arrest—he would have refused Gay’s requests and

  would not have inquired further into their relationship or asked Braxton about giving

  her the backpack. At best, when explaining why he did not ask Braxton if Gay could

  take the backpack, the officer said it was “not common practice to be handing out

  personal property of other persons to other people.” Id. at 93. And it is true that the

  government produced a department policy stating that “[a]ny officer coming into

  possession of personal . . . property will bring such property to the [e]vidence and

  [p]roperty [s]ection[] or an authorized remote evidence locker.” R. vol. 1, 28. But the

  existence of and compliance with such a policy does not by itself establish a

  reasonable community-caretaking rationale. See Sanders, 796 F.3d at 1249–50

  (“Protection against unreasonable impoundments, even those conducted pursuant to a

  standardized policy, is part and parcel of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against

  unreasonable searches and seizures.” (emphasis added)); Venezia, 995 F.3d at 1182

  (holding impoundment unreasonable despite compliance with policy because policy

  the words of the district court, its factual findings “really do[]n’t matter . . . because
  it’s all on body[]cam,” id. at 142—we decline to interpret the district court’s
  reference to Gay as “a stranger” as a factual finding that she and Braxton were
  strangers to each other, id. at 149. And even if we were to do so, we would hold that
  finding clearly erroneous in light of the strong record evidence—detailed above,
  supra p. 12—that Gay and Braxton were not at all strangers. See United States v.
  Martinez-Jimenez, 464 F.3d 1205, 1209 (10th Cir. 2006) (stating that factual finding
  is clearly erroneous if it is “without factual support in the record or we are left with
  the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made” (quoting United States
  v. Cernobyl, 255 F.3d 1215, 1221 (10th Cir. 2001))).

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  “did not grant the officers authority to do what the Fourth Amendment forbids—to

  impound a vehicle absent a reasonable community-caretaking rationale”). Nor does

  the policy negate the existence of an alternative to impoundment: The policy defines

  personal property as property that “must be held for safekeeping for the owner.”

  R. vol. 1, 27 (emphasis added). And the officer’s testimony does not meaningfully

  explain why, in light of Gay’s requests, he needed to impound the backpack to keep it

  safe for its owner. We thus conclude, on the record before us, that the alternative to

  impoundment of giving the backpack to Gay weighs heavily against finding a

  reasonable community-caretaking rationale. See Woodard, 5 F.4th at 1156 (weighing

  this factor against community-caretaking rationale where officers refused, without

  reason, to let defendant call someone to take his car); Venezia, 995 F.3d at 1179

  (“Where an alternative to impoundment does not threaten public safety or

  convenience, impoundment is less likely to be justified by a community-caretaking

  rationale.”).

         To recap, the only factor that favors a reasonable community-caretaking

  rationale for impoundment is that the arrest took place on public property. The

  remaining factors—an alternative to impoundment, that the backpack was not

  implicated in the crime, and that Braxton did not consent—cut significantly against a

  community-caretaking rationale. On these facts, we conclude the government failed

  to meet its burden of proving that, despite the alternative of giving the backpack to

  Gay, it was inevitable that the officers would have validly impounded the backpack

  under a reasonable community-caretaking rationale. See Venezia, 995 F.3d at 1182

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  (concluding that existence of alternative rendered impoundment unreasonable); cf.

  Kendall, 14 F.4th at 1123 (concluding that “balance clearly weighs in favor of the

  reasonableness of impoundment, partly because there were no good alternatives”).

        The government emphasizes that officers are not obligated to explore

  alternatives to impoundment, noting that “[t]he reasonableness of any particular

  governmental activity does not necessarily or invariably turn on the existence of

  alternative ‘less intrusive’ means.” Aplee. Br. 24 (emphasis added) (quoting Bertine,

  479 U.S. at 374). But this general proposition does not mean that reasonableness does

  not sometimes, depending on the facts, turn on the existence of alternatives to

  impoundment. Indeed, “we have recognized that impoundment . . . is not reasonable

  when there are clear and promptly available alternatives.” United States v. Trujillo,

  993 F.3d 859, 868 (10th Cir. 2021); see also United States v. Pappas, 735 F.2d 1232,

  1234 (10th Cir. 1984) (finding impoundment unreasonable in part because

  defendant’s girlfriend and other friends were present and could have taken custody);

  cf. Trujillo, 993 F.3d at 870 (concluding that where vehicle posed traffic hazard and

  defendant was alone at 2:30 a.m., officers “were not required to allow [d]efendant to

  call someone to come pick up the [vehicle] and then, assuming he was successful,

  wait around for the new driver to arrive” and citing cases with similar facts and

  reasoning). Moreover, our precedent establishes that officers generally act

  unreasonably when they ignore or shut down obvious alternatives to impoundment.

  See Woodard, 5 F.4th at 1156 (weighing existence of alternative against community-

  caretaking rationale where defendant asked officers if he could call someone to pick

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  up vehicle and officers refused to let him do so without explanation); Sanders, 796

  F.3d at 1251 (finding impoundment unreasonable in part because “police impounded

  [defendant’s] vehicle without offering her the opportunity to make alternative

  arrangements, even though she stated that she was willing to have someone pick up

  the vehicle on her behalf”); cf. Kendall, 14 F.4th at 1123–25 (finding impoundment

  reasonable in part because of absence of alternatives).5 And the officer here did just

  that, failing to offer any reasonable rationale for not at least inquiring further about

  whether Gay could take the backpack.6

        In sum, because a clear and promptly available alternative existed here, the

  government cannot show that it would have impounded the backpack under a

  reasonable, nonpretextual community-caretaking rationale. Thus, the government

        5
           Braxton additionally highlights a district-court case that held the
  impoundment of personal property was unjustified by a reasonable community-
  caretaking rationale in a factually similar case. See United States v. Knapp, No. 17-
  CR-207, 2019 WL 11502454, at *3 (D. Wyo. June 13, 2019) (concluding
  impoundment was unreasonable in part because friend who was present during
  defendant’s arrest offered to take her purse, but officers talked friend out of it).
         6
           A separate aspect of the officer’s testimony is also troubling: When prompted
  to expound on what he would have done had he availed himself of the alternative to
  impoundment, the officer said that even if he had given Gay the backpack, he would
  have inventoried it before doing so. The government does not argue on appeal that
  this on-the-scene inventory search would have led to the inevitable discovery of the
  gun, and the district court ruled below that any such on-the-scene inventory search
  would have been constitutionally impermissible. But we note that this testimony
  suggests that in a counterfactual world without the illegal search incident to arrest
  and without an illegal impoundment, an illegal search would still have taken place.
  Although by no means determinative, this testimony further supports our conclusion
  that the inevitable-discovery doctrine does not save the government from the
  exclusionary rule in this case.

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  failed to meet its burden to show that the gun would have been legally and inevitably

  discovered.

                                       Conclusion

        The government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that if the

  law-enforcement officers had not conducted an illegal search incident to arrest, they

  would have nevertheless lawfully impounded the backpack as a matter of community

  caretaking and then discovered the gun during an inventory search. Thus, the

  inevitable-discovery exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply, and the gun

  discovered during the illegal search of the backpack must be suppressed. We

  accordingly reverse the district court’s order denying suppression and remand for

  further proceedings.

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