The authority for search incident to arrest becomes limited once a suspect is fully secured and separated from personal property. In United States v. Allen, the 4th Circuit considered whether searching bags belonging to a combative arrestee after he was restrained was constitutional. The court ultimately upheld the evidence under the inevitable discovery doctrine, emphasizing the constitutional importance of standardized inventory search procedures during booking.
United States v. Allen, 2026 WL 1140871 (4th Cir. 2026)
The 4th Circuit’s decision in United States v. Allen reads like a situation many officers have lived through. A chaotic arrest. A resisting suspect. A quick search of property nearby. And then, later, a courtroom asking whether that search passed constitutional muster.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, officers were working a late-night investigation. They already had two people in custody and had begun searching a vehicle when Milton Allen rode his bike through the scene, ignoring repeated commands to stay back. Allen “weaved in and out of the crime scene, causing the officers to become distracted and concerned that Allen might ambush them while riding in and out and around the area.” He wasn’t just being a nuisance — he was creating a real safety concern.
Eventually, officers moved to arrest him. That turned into a full-on struggle. Allen resisted, bit an officer’s finger, and had to be subdued by multiple officers before being handcuffed and placed in leg restraints. His two cross-body bags were removed and set down a few feet away while officers got him under control. At that point — once Allen was fully secured — officers searched the bags and found guns, drugs, and cash.
“Well-established, consistently applied inventory procedures are more than administrative housekeeping.”
Under Arizona v. Gant (556 U.S. 332 (2009)) and the 4th Circuit’s decision in United States v. Davis (997 F.3d 191 (4th Cir. 2021)), the authority to search containers incident to arrest is not unlimited. The key question is whether the suspect is unsecured and within reaching distance of the item at the time of the search. And here, Allen was handcuffed, his legs restrained, surrounded by officers, and separated from the bags. In plain terms, he didn’t have access to those items. Under Davis, that makes the search incident to arrest theory a tough sell.
That’s where many cases would fall apart. But this one didn’t — because the Fourth Amendment analysis doesn’t end with whether the search was valid. The next question is just as important: Would the evidence have been found anyway, lawfully?
The court said yes, and it pointed straight to inventory search procedures. Both the Raleigh Police Department and the Wake County Detention Center had standard, routine policies requiring officers to search every arrestee’s personal property before booking. And those policies weren’t vague suggestions — they were written in a way that left officers with essentially no discretion. If someone is arrested, their property gets searched. Period.
Inventory searches are a well-established exception to the warrant requirement. They’re not about looking for evidence — they’re about documenting property, preventing claims of theft, and keeping weapons and contraband out of the jail. But for the exception to hold, the process has to be standardized. It can’t be a pretext for rummaging. In Allen, the court found the agencies’ policies did exactly what they’re supposed to do to keep the search constitutional, dictating who gets searched, when the search happens, and what gets searched.
The district court had pushed back, even suggesting the government needed to produce a written copy of the jail’s policy. The 4th Circuit wasn’t having it. Testimony about standard practices was enough. Courts don’t require a policy manual in evidence if officers can clearly explain what is routinely done and why.
So even if the roadside search of Allen’s bags didn’t fit neatly within Davis, it ultimately didn’t matter. Once Allen was transported and booked, those same bags would have been searched as a matter of routine procedure, and the contraband would have been discovered anyway. That’s the inevitable discovery rule in action.
There’s a practical lesson here. Officers are often trained — correctly — to think in terms of immediate justifications: search incident to arrest, officer safety, exigency. But United States v. Allen is a reminder to think one step further. If something is going to be lawfully searched as part of booking or inventory, that reality may preserve the evidence even if the initial search is later questioned. That doesn’t mean shortcuts are acceptable — it just means the law recognizes that not every misstep requires throwing out reliable evidence.
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In the end, Allen reinforces two truths that have been around for a long time. First, once a suspect is secured and separated from an item, the justification for a search incident to arrest starts to fade quickly. And second, well-established, consistently applied inventory procedures are more than administrative housekeeping — they can be the difference between losing a case and keeping it intact.
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