Compelling defendant to give up the combination of a safe in his shared dwelling to search it under a warrant violated the Fifth Amendment. United States v. Villarreal-Resendiz, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174690 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 5, 2026):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\nAbout an hour into the search, three to four officers surrounded Defendant and told him that they needed the code to the safe. Although it is disputed whether these officers were carrying AR-15 style assault rifles, it is clear that at the time of the conversation, there were several officers milling around the property with AR-15 style assault rifles. See Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 104 S. Ct. 3138, 3149, 82 L. Ed. 2d 317 (1984) (“To be sure, the aura of authority surrounding an armed, uniformed officer and the knowledge that the officer has some discretion in deciding whether to issue a citation, in combination, exert[s] some pressure on the detainee to respond to questions.”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defendant was never informed that he was not required to provide the officers with the code to the safe. Compare Howes, 132 S. Ct. at 1195 (relying on the fact that the defendant had been told he was free to end the questioning and to return to his cell to hold that his confession was voluntary and did not violate Miranda). In fact, when Defendant initially was hesitant to provide the officers with the code, he was told not to “make this more difficult.” Eventually Defendant provided law enforcement officers with the code to the safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Considering the show of force by the number of law enforcement officers present and the limitations on Defendant’s and continual display of AR-15 style assault movement, rifles, officers’ reference to a search warrant, the court concludes that providing the code to law enforcement officers was not a product of Defendant’s “free and rational choice” Broussard, 80 F.3d at 1033; see also Bumper, 88 S Ct. at 1792; Berkemer, 104 S. Ct. at 3149; compare Howes, 132 S. Ct. at 1195. Accordingly, the court concludes that law enforcement officers compelled Defendant to provide the code to the safe in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. Because the Supreme Court “requires the exclusion of the physical fruit of actually coerced statements,” the firearms and ammunition discovered in the safe must be suppressed. United States v Patane, 542 U.S. 630, 124 S. Ct. 2620, 2628, 2630, 159 L. Ed. 2d 667 (2004) (discussing New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U.S. 450, 99 S. Ct. 1292, 1296-97, 59 L. Ed. 2d 501 (1979)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Compelling defendant to give up the combination of a safe in his shared dwelling to search it under a warrant violated the Fifth Amendment. United States v. Villarreal-Resendiz, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174690 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 5, 2026):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-privileges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64613,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64612\/revisions\/64613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}