Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Mackenzie Becker, Petitioner v. United States

Supreme Court briefJul 7, 2026

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NO.

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

MACKENZIE BECKER,

Petitioner,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Respondent.

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

MATTHEW K. BELCHER

Interim Federal Public Defender

PERRIN TOURANGEAU

Assistant Federal Public Defender

Counsel of Record for Petitioner

633 17th Street, Suite 1000

Denver, Colorado 80202

(303) 294-7002

Question Presented

The Fourth Amendment permits a search warrant only on probable cause that

evidence of a crime will be found at the place to be searched, and this Court has held

that the warrant’s supporting affidavit must give the magistrate judge facts from which

to make that determination, not merely restate the officer’s own conclusions. In other

words, the supporting affidavit must set forth sufficient factual material to establish a

probable-cause nexus between the evidence sought and the location to be searched.

This case presents a recurring factual scenario: where police have probable cause

to believe that a suspect used a gun to commit a crime, and seek a warrant to search his

residence for that firearm. The courts of appeals are deeply divided over what is needed

to meet the nexus requirement in such circumstances: some hold that it is sufficient,

without more, that police have probable cause to believe that the suspect used a gun—

on the premise that such weapons are presumptively stored at home; whereas others

hold that the supporting affidavit must instead tie the weapon sought to the home to

be searched with case-specific facts.

As such, the question presented here is:

Whether a search warrant’s supporting affidavit establishes probable cause to

search a suspect’s home for a firearm used in a crime based solely on the

inference that firearms are generally kept at home, or whether the Fourth

Amendment requires case-specific facts linking the weapon sought to the

residence to be searched.

Parties to the Proceeding

The petitioner in this case is Mackenzie Becker, who was the defendant-appellant

in the court below, and the respondent is the United States of America, who was the

plaintiff-appellee in the court below. No party is a corporation.

Related Proceedings

United States District Court

On November 8, 2023, the United States District Court for the District of

Colorado held an evidentiary hearing on Petitioner Mackenzie Becker’s motion to

suppress in United States v. Becker, 23-cr-00285-CNS (D. Colo.). At the conclusion of the

hearing, the district court denied Mr. Becker’s motion in an oral ruling. The complete

transcript of that hearing appears in the Appendix at A16.

On August 16, 2024, the district court entered a criminal judgment against Mr.

Becker, which appears in the Appendix at A53.

United States Court of Appeals

On March 9, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

affirmed the district court’s judgment in United States v. Becker, No. 24-1331, 168 F.4th

1337 (10th Cir. 2026). That published opinion, which is the subject of this petition,

appears in the Appendix at A1.

iii

Table of Contents

Page

Question Presented ................................................................................................................. i

Parties to the Proceeding ....................................................................................................... ii

Related Proceedings .............................................................................................................. iii

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. iv

Table of Appendices .............................................................................................................. v

Table of Authorities .............................................................................................................. vi

Petition for a Writ of Certiorari ............................................................................................ 1

Opinions and Orders Below ................................................................................................. 1

Statement of Jurisdiction ....................................................................................................... 1

Constitutional Provision Involved ....................................................................................... 1

Statement of the Case ............................................................................................................ 2

Reasons for Granting the Writ ............................................................................................. 7

The circuits are deeply divided over whether probable cause to believe

a firearm was used to commit a crime can alone establish probable cause

to search a suspect’s home. ........................................................................................ 8

II. The Fifth and Tenth Circuits have now reached opposite results on

materially indistinguishable facts. ............................................................................ 14

III. The Tenth Circuit’s approach is wrong.................................................................. 16

IV. This question of constitutional law is important and recurring. ......................... 19

V. This case presents an ideal vehicle. ......................................................................... 21

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 22

Table of Appendices

Appendix A

Opinion, United States v. Becker, No. 24-1331,

168 F.4th 1337 (10th Cir. 2026) ............................................................................. A1

Appendix B

Transcript of Hearing on Defendant’s Motion to Suppress,

United States v. Becker, No. 23-cr-00285-CNS (D. Colo. Nov. 8, 2023) ........... A16

Appendix C

Judgment, United States v. Becker, No. 23-cr-00285-CNS

(D. Colo. Aug. 16, 2024) ........................................................................................ A53

Appendix D

Order Granting First Motion for Extension of Time to

File Petition for Rehearing, United States v. Becker, No. 24-1331

(10th Cir. Mar. 18, 2026) ....................................................................................... A60

Appendix E

Order Granting Second Motion for Extension of Time to

File Petition for Rehearing, United States v. Becker, No. 24-1331

(10th Cir. Apr. 3, 2026) ......................................................................................... A61

Appendix F

Order Granting Motion for Extension of Time to

File Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, Becker v. United States,

No. ___, (S. Ct. June 3, 2026) .............................................................................. A62

Table of Authorities

Page

Cases

Anderson v. United States,

488 U.S. 1031 (1989) (mem.) ........................................................................................... 8

Anton v. United States,

556 U.S. 1184 (2009) (mem.)............................................................................................. 9

Bastida v. Henderson,

487 F.2d 860 (5th Cir. 1973) ........................................................................................... 11

Chatrie v. United States,

609 U.S. ---, 2026 WL 1855568 (2026) .......................................................................... 21

Cowling v. United States,

566 U.S. 940 (2012) (mem.) ............................................................................................... 9

Florida v. Jardines,

569 U.S. 1 (2013) .............................................................................................................. 19

Illinois v. Gates,

462 U.S. 213 (1983) ......................................................................................... 7, 16, 17, 18

Johnson v. United States,

333 U.S. 10 (1948) ...................................................................................................... 16, 19

Lange v. California,

594 U.S. 295 (2021) .......................................................................................................... 19

Maryland v. Ward,

712 A.2d 534 (Md. 1998) ................................................................................................... 9

Peffer v. Stephens,

586 U.S. 820 (2018) (mem.) ............................................................................................... 9

Peffer v. Stephens,

880 F.3d 256 (6th Cir. 2018) ............................................................................................. 9

Segura v. United States,

468 U.S. 796 (1984) .......................................................................................................... 19

United States v. Alqahtani,

73 F.4th 835 (10th Cir. 2023) ........................................................................................ 6, 9

United States v. Anderson,

851 F.2d 727 (4th Cir. 1988) ............................................................................................. 8

United States v. Anton,

546 F.3d 1355 (11th Cir. 2008) ......................................................................................... 9

United States v. Becker,

23-cr-00285-CNS (D. Colo.) ........................................................................................ iii, 4

United States v. Becker,

168 F.4th 1337 (10th Cir. 2026) ....................................... iii, 1, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 21

United States v. Buchanan,

910 F.2d 1571 (7th Cir. 1990) ................................................................................... 13, 14

United States v. Charest,

602 F.2d 1015 (1st Cir. 1979) ..............................................................................12, 13, 18

United States v. Cowling,

648 F.3d 690 (8th Cir. 2011) ............................................................................................. 9

United States v. Hicks,

650 F.3d 1058 (7th Cir. 2011) ......................................................................................... 13

United States v. Holt,

173 F.4th 1335 (10th Cir. 2026) ...................................................................................... 10

United States v. Jones,

994 F.2d 1051 (3d Cir. 1993)........................................................................................... 14

United States v. Magee,

No. 25-cr-03, 2026 WL 1030324 (E.D. La. Apr. 16, 2026)......................................... 20

United States v. Magee,

No. 26-30298 (5th Cir. 2026) .......................................................................................... 20

United States v. Mora,

989 F.3d 794 (10th Cir. 2021) ......................................................................................... 10

United States v. Wilson,

153 F.4th 478 (5th Cir. 2025) ....................... 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20

vii

Statutes

18 U.S.C. § 3231 ..................................................................................................................... 1

28 U.S.C. § 1254(1) ................................................................................................................. 1

28 U.S.C. § 1291 ..................................................................................................................... 1

Constitutional Provisions

U.S. Const. amend. IV .................................................... i, 1, 7, 8, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22

Other Authorities

U.S. Dep’t of Just., Fed. Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Just. Info. Servs. Div.,

Aggravated Assault with a Firearm, 2022-2024 (Mar. 2026) ............................................. 20

U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, 2025 Annual Report (2025) .............................................................. 20

Rules

Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2) ...................................................................................................... 21

viii

Petition for a Writ of Certiorari

Mackenzie Becker respectfully petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the

judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Opinions and Orders Below

The Tenth Circuit’s published opinion in Mr. Becker’s appeal is reported at

United States v. Becker, 168 F.4th 1337 (10th Cir. 2026), and appears in the Appendix at

A1. The transcript of the hearing on Mr. Becker’s motion to suppress, which includes

the district court’s oral ruling denying that motion, appears in the Appendix at A16.

Statement of Jurisdiction

The United States District Court for the District of Colorado had jurisdiction

over the criminal case against Mr. Becker pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231. The Tenth

Circuit had jurisdiction over Mr. Becker’s appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. After

entering judgment on March 9, 2026, the Tenth Circuit extended the time to file any

petition for rehearing on March 18, 2026, and again on April 3, 2026. App. A60-A61.

On June 3, 2026, Justice Gorsuch extended the time to file this petition to July 7, 2026.

Id. at A62-A63. This Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1).

Constitutional Provision Involved

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,

against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no

Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,

and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to

be seized.

Statement of the Case

After an apparent road-rage incident where a firearm was allegedly discharged,

police executed two search warrants for a house associated with Petitioner Mackenzie

Becker, finding evidence used to convict him of federal firearms and drug charges. He

moved to suppress that evidence, arguing that the initial warrant to search the house

was not supported by probable cause because its supporting affidavit failed to establish

the requisite factual nexus between the suspected crime and the residence to be

searched. After the district court denied his motion, Mr. Becker appealed, renewing his

challenge to the search warrant. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth

Circuit ultimately affirmed. That ruling is the subject of this petition.

***

On February 13, 2023, a driver in Denver, Colorado, allegedly brandished and

fired a handgun at another motorist during a road-rage encounter on Interstate 25.

App. A1-A3. The victim photographed the other car’s license plate, and Detective

Gerald Sloan of the Denver Police Department traced the plate to a green Saab

registered to Mr. Becker with an address at an apartment on South Parker Road in

Denver. Id. at A3. Detective Sloan also learned that Mr. Becker had prior felony

convictions and outstanding arrest warrants. Id.

Detective Sloan visited the apartment and found a green Saab bearing the same

plate number as the car involved in the incident, but the car appeared to him to be

abandoned. App. A3. Although the plate was apparently a front plate (it had no

registration stickers), it was attached to the car’s rear. Id. A search of records from

license-plate readers revealed that a plate with the same number had been observed on

a gray Saab sedan 10 days before the road-rage incident. Id.

After consulting unspecified “law enforcement databases,” Detective Sloan

found a second address attributed to Mr. Becker, a house on West Iliff Lane in

Lakewood, Colorado (the “Iliff Lane house”). App. A3-A4. On March 1, 2023, just

over two weeks after the alleged road-rage incident, Detective Sloan went to the Iliff

Lane house. Id. at A4. Parked in the driveway, he saw a gray Saab sedan with the same

license plate number as the sedan involved in the incident. Id. In Detective Sloan’s view,

the gray Saab matched the image of the sedan captured by the victim. Id. When officers

returned five days later, they observed Mr. Becker exiting the house and entering the

gray car several times. Id. They also saw him washing the car in the driveway. Id.

On March 7, 2023, twenty-two days after the road-rage incident, Detective Sloan

applied for a warrant to search the Iliff Lane house for firearms, ammunition, and

indicia of occupancy. App. A4. In his supporting affidavit, Detective Sloan recounted

the suspected road-rage incident and his investigative steps. Id. at A2. The affidavit’s

sole link between the incident and the house was the assertion that “[a] firearm is not

normally disposed of after the commission of a crime, and it is, therefore, still likely to

be found in any location or vehicle to be searched associated with [Mr. Becker].” Id. at

A4. A state magistrate judge approved the warrant the same day. Id. at A5. When

officers executed the search warrant two days later, they discovered evidence of drug

trafficking, paused to obtain a second search warrant, and ultimately seized fentanyl,

cocaine, firearms, and ammunition. Id.

Mr. Becker was subsequently indicted in the United States District Court for the

District of Colorado on four charges related to the firearms and drugs found at the Iliff

Lane house. App. A5. He moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the

search, arguing, among other things, that the initial search warrant’s supporting affidavit

lacked a probable-cause nexus between the road-rage incident and the house. Id. After

a hearing, the district court denied the motion in an oral ruling, calling the nexus

question a “closer call” but ultimately determining that the affidavit provided a

sufficient factual basis to connect the house to the crime. Id. at A49. According to the

district court, it was reasonable to think that Mr. Becker resided at or had access to the

Iliff Lane house and, in its view, the magistrate judge who issued the warrant was

“entitled to rely on the [affiant]’s opinion that a gun may [have] be[en] hidden” at the

house, given that there are “only so many places one would hide a gun.” Id. at A50.

Thereafter, Mr. Becker entered a conditional guilty plea to possession with intent

to distribute fentanyl, possession with intent to distribute cocaine, and being a felon in

possession of a firearm and ammunition, reserving his right to seek appellate review of

the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. App. A5. The district court

ultimately sentenced Mr. Becker to 180 months’ imprisonment. Id. at A54.

On appeal, Mr. Becker renewed his challenge to the search of the Iliff Lane

house, arguing, in pertinent part, that the initial warrant’s supporting affidavit

established, at most, probable cause to arrest him, not probable cause to search his

believed home for the gun involved in a three-week-old, alleged road-rage incident.

App. A1-A2. The warrant’s supporting affidavit, he contended, supplied no facts tying

the firearm to the Iliff Lane house: it contained no sightings of a gun there, no report

or tip that he stored one there, and no observations of suspicious activity at the house.

Id. at A8-A9. Consequently, the affidavit lacked the requisite probable-cause nexus

between the road-rage incident and the Iliff Lane house. Id.

In support of his argument, Mr. Becker relied on United States v. Wilson, 153 F.4th

478 (5th Cir. 2025), in which the Fifth Circuit affirmed suppression of evidence seized

from a residence searched after the defendant brandished a pistol during a public

altercation. See App. A12 n.1 (acknowledging argument). As Mr. Becker explained, the

supporting affidavit to the search warrant challenged in Wilson was materially identical

to the affidavit supporting the warrant to search the Iliff Lane house: it described the

altercation; placed the suspect and his car at his supposed residence; and asserted that

the evidence sought, namely, the gun, was “believed to be located” there. See Wilson,

153 F.4th at 485-86. This showing, the Fifth Circuit held, was constitutionally

insufficient; the affidavit did not provide information linking the crime to the

defendant’s home, and the affidavit’s “lone, unexplained assertion that officers

‘believed’ contraband was ‘located at [the suspect’s] residence’” was “far too thin to

make probable cause reasonable.” Id. at 486. Because a firearm is “portable, easily

transferred, and often quickly discarded,” the court reasoned, its continued presence at

a home following a public altercation cannot be presumed without some case-specific

facts to support it. Id. at 486-88 & n.48.

The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Mr. Becker’s motion to

suppress. App. A2. Accepting that the affidavit supplied no direct evidence connecting

the firearm to the house, the court held that the requisite nexus was supplied by the

nature of the evidence itself: a “personal firearm is the type of evidence likely to be kept

in a suspect’s residence, and is likely to remain there for an extended period of time.”

Id. at A13 (quoting United States v. Alqahtani, 73 F.4th 835, 844 (10th Cir. 2023)). As

such, it was sufficient that the affidavit alleged that “[a] firearm is not normally disposed

of after the commission of a crime” and thus, that the firearm sought was “still likely

to be found in any location or vehicle to be searched associated with [Mr. Becker].” Id.

at A10-A11. Moreover, the court concluded, the inference that the firearm was at Mr.

Becker’s residence was not defeated by the three-week gap between the road-rage

incident and the issuance of the warrant. Id. at A11-A12. Because it would be difficult

for him to acquire a new gun given his criminal record, the court reasoned, Mr. Becker

was unlikely to dispose of the firearm; and his car, an “instrumentality of the crime,”

had been seen at the house despite the passage of two weeks. In reaching its conclusion,

the court expressly declined to follow the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Wilson, which it

understood to be “inconsistent with [Tenth Circuit] precedents.” Id. at A12 n.1.

Finally, because it held that the warrant was supported by probable cause, the

court did not reach the government’s alternative argument that suppression was

improper because, in searching the Iliff Lane house, the officers had relied on the

warrant in good faith. App. A14.

This petition follows.

Reasons for Granting the Writ

The Fourth Amendment forbids a warrant to search a home unless the

supporting affidavit establishes “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a

crime will be found in [that] particular place.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983).

The courts of appeals are divided over what that so-called probable-cause nexus

requirement demands when the evidence sought is a firearm.

Some circuits hold that probable cause to believe that a firearm was used in the

commission of a crime is enough, by itself, to establish probable cause to search a

suspect’s residence, on the presumption that firearms are typically kept at home. Other

circuits hold the opposite: that firearms are precisely the kind of portable, disposable

evidence whose presence in a home cannot be presumed, and that the affidavit thus

must tie the weapon to the residence to be searched with case-specific facts. The Tenth

Circuit’s decision below and the Fifth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Wilson, 153

F.4th 478 (5th Cir. 2025), reach opposite results on materially indistinguishable facts,

cleanly illustrating the conflict. The Court should grant review to resolve it.

The circuits are deeply divided over whether probable cause to believe a

firearm was used to commit a crime can alone establish probable cause to

search a suspect’s home.

The courts of appeals are deeply divided over an important, recurring

constitutional question: whether the use of a gun in the commission of a crime can, by

itself, give rise to probable cause to search a suspect’s home—i.e., establish the requisite

probable-cause nexus between the evidence sought and the residence to be searched—

or whether the Fourth Amendment instead requires case-specific facts tying the weapon

sought to the home to be searched in order for a warrant to issue.

On one side of the split, the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits

hold that because it is reasonable to think people generally store their guns at home,

probable cause to believe that a suspect used a gun in committing a crime is, on its own,

enough establish probable cause to search his residence. See, e.g., App. A10-A14; United

States v. Anderson, 851 F.2d 727, 729 (4th Cir. 1988) (search warrant was supported by

probable cause “even though the affidavit contained no facts that the weapons were

located in defendant’s trailer” because “[i]t was reasonable for the magistrate to believe

that the defendant’s gun and the silencer would be found in his residence”), cert. denied,

488 U.S. 1031 (1989) (mem.); Peffer v. Stephens, 880 F.3d 256, 271-72 (6th Cir. 2018)

(explaining that “the use of a gun in the commission of a crime is sufficient to establish

a nexus between the suspected criminal’s gun and his residence” because “individuals

who own guns keep them at their homes”), cert. denied, 586 U.S. 820 (2018) (mem.);

United States v. Cowling, 648 F.3d 690, 696 (8th Cir. 2011) (“Because the warrant affidavit

established probable cause that [the defendant] possessed stolen firearms, it follows that

probable cause existed to search [his] residence, because people generally keep firearms

at home or on their persons.” (cleaned up)), cert. denied, 566 U.S. 940 (2012) (mem.);

United States v. Anton, 546 F.3d 1355, 1358 (11th Cir. 2008) (concluding that affidavit

established sufficient nexus to defendant’s home based on affiant’s assertion that, in his

“experience, convicted felons and firearms dealers possessing contraband typically store

these items on their property”), cert. denied, 556 U.S. 1184 (2009) (mem.).1

For example, as explained in the opinion below, the Tenth Circuit treats firearms

as a “special class” of evidence that, by its nature, is “likely to be kept in a suspect’s

residence” and “remain there for an extended period of time.” App. A13 (quoting

United States v. Alqahtani, 73 F.4th 835, 844 (10th Cir. 2023)). Under this approach, a

warrant’s supporting affidavit need not allege facts connecting the specific weapon

At least one state court has taken a similar approach. See, e.g., Maryland v. Ward, 712 A.2d 534, 537-40

(Md. 1998) (probable cause to search a defendant’s home established where there is “probable cause

to believe that a crime of violence, involving the use of a weapon, had been committed, that the

defendant was the criminal agent, and that the defendant resided [there]”).

sought to the suspect’s residence; the inference is supplied categorically, “merely on the

basis of the affiant-officer’s experience” that individuals ordinarily store their weapons

at home. Id. (quoting United States v. Mora, 989 F.3d 794, 801 (10th Cir. 2021)); see also

United States v. Holt, 173 F.4th 1335, 1341-42 (10th Cir. 2026) (citing Becker for

proposition that probable-cause nexus requirement can be satisfied in gun cases by

officer’s observation that firearms are the type of evidence likely to be kept at a suspect’s

residence because such an inference is reasonable). In Mr. Becker’s case, the Tenth

Circuit applied that rule to uphold the warrant to search the Iliff Lane house, which

rested on nothing more than the affiant’s assertion that “[a] firearm is not normally

disposed of after the commission of a crime,” and was, “therefore,” likely to be found

at any place “associated with” Mr. Becker. Id. at A10-A14.

At the opposite end, the Fifth and First Circuits hold that such inferences about

where firearms are generally stored cannot substitute for a case-specific nexus. In

Wilson, the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court’s order suppressing evidence seized

from an apartment searched after the defendant brandished a pistol during a public

altercation. 153 F.4th at 481-90.2 The supporting affidavit to the challenged search

In reviewing a defendant’s challenge to a search warrant, the Fifth Circuit first addresses whether the

good-faith exception to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule applies before turning to whether

probable cause supported the warrant. See Wilson, 153 F.4th at 484, 489. Following that framework,

the Wilson court resolved both questions against the government, holding that the affidavit was bare

bones, i.e., “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely

unreasonable,” id. at 484, after which it “necessarily follow[ed] that probable cause was absent,” id. at

489. In any event, the court’s good-faith determination hinged on the fact that the affidavit failed to

warrant, like the one here, recounted the incident; placed the defendant and his car at

the apartment, his suspected residence; and asserted that the evidence sought, namely,

the firearm, was “believed to be located” there. Id. at 482-83, 485-88 & n.36. That, the

Fifth Circuit held, was not sufficient. Although the affidavit’s allegations were “likely

enough for probable cause to arrest,” the court explained, “probable cause to arrest is

not probable cause to search.” Id. at 485. In the court’s view, the affidavit failed to create

a factual link between the altercation and the apartment—it “alleged no suspicious

activity at or near [the apartment], and its lone, unexplained assertion that officers

‘believed’ contraband was ‘located at [the suspect’s] residence’” was “far too thin to

make probable cause reasonable.” Id. at 485-86.

Nor could “[s]peculation about what might be found at a residence” establish

probable cause to search the apartment. Wilson, 153 F.4th at 486. The court explained

that firearms “brandished in public altercations are not akin to passports in a drawer”;

rather, “[t]hey are portable, easily transferred, and often quickly discarded,” and even if

a suspect “initially stashes” a gun at home, “the likelihood that it remains there ‘quickly

dwindles’ with each passing day.” Id. (quoting Bastida v. Henderson, 487 F.2d 860, 864

(5th Cir. 1973)). Although “it can sometimes be reasonable to infer that criminals hide

connect the suspected crime to the residence to be searched: Because the affidavit “offered nothing—

no observations, no inferences, no corroborated tips—linking the [altercation] to the [apartment],” no

reasonable officer could have believed that the requisite probable-cause nexus existed. Id. at 485-89.

firearms in their homes,” the court explained, “the Fourth Amendment demands more

than generalities: each affidavit must tether such an inference to the particular

circumstances of the case.” Id. In other decisions where the court had relied in part on

such “common-sense” inferences about where criminals might store contraband, they

were “anchored in case-specific circumstances, not in generalized assumptions about

what ‘most people’ might do.” Id. at 487-88 & n.48. The Fifth Circuit thus rejected the

rule the Tenth Circuit applied in Mr. Becker’s case—treating the inference that guns are

typically stored at home as sufficient alone to satisfy the nexus requirement—

demanding instead “facts suggesting” that the weapon sought had “made its way to”

the residence to be searched and was likely to “still be there” weeks later. Id.; see also id.

(“For guns-on-the-go items such as ammunition, drum magazines, and weapons, the

affidavit still had to connect the house with the criminal operations.” (cleaned up)).

Similarly, the First Circuit has held that a supporting affidavit failed to establish

probable cause to search the suspect’s home where it contained no allegations “from

which a factual finding could be made that the gun used in the shooting [under

investigation] was probably located at defendant’s premises.” United States v. Charest, 602

F.2d 1015, 1016-17 (1st Cir. 1979). In the court’s view, “[c]ommon sense” suggests

“that it is unlikely that a murderer would hide in his own home a gun used to shoot

someone,” given the ease of disposing of such weapons and the “well-known” use of

ballistics testing to accurately trace bullets to the gun that fired them. Id. at 1017. This

was especially true, the court reasoned, in light of the 16-day lag between the

commission of the shooting and the issuance of the search warrant; “[i]t is contrary to

common sense and logic to expect a murderer to keep the murder weapon in his own

premises for almost three weeks.” Id. at 1018. Without some additional evidence linking

the gun to the suspect’s home, the court held that the affidavit was insufficient to supply

probable cause. Id. at 1016-18.

Between these poles sit courts that acknowledge that it might be reasonable to

assume that people keep their guns in their homes while nevertheless relying on casespecific evidence supporting that inference in finding probable cause. See, e.g., United

States v. Hicks, 650 F.3d 1058, 1067-69 (7th Cir. 2011) (distinguishing Charest, 602 F.2d

at 1017, and concluding that officer “had a reasonable factual basis” to believe that the

suspects kept semi-automatic firearm nicknamed “the chopper” rather than disposing

of it after a public shooting where officer “gathered information from several sources

indicating that [the suspects] maintained shared possession of the weapon” and had a

tip that the weapon was probably at one of their houses); United States v. Buchanan, 910

F.2d 1571, 1573-74 (7th Cir. 1990) (distinguishing Charest, 602 F.2d at 1017, and

concluding that it was reasonable to believe gun used in murder would be found in

fugitive suspect’s hotel room where suspect was living in temporary quarters under a

false name, and thus could “reasonably be supposed to have made the gun unavailable

by making himself unavailable”; as a fugitive, was vulnerable and constrained “in

movement and activity”; and was independently suspected of drug dealing, guns being

a tool of that trade). Still others have yet to address “whether in every case the fact that

a suspect committed a crime involving . . . a gun automatically provides a magistrate

with enough information to approve a search of a suspect’s home,” while recognizing

that it is reasonable to assume that people keep their guns in their homes. See, e.g., United

States v. Jones, 994 F.2d 1051, 1056-57 (3d Cir. 1993).

The result is a genuine and acknowledged conflict over a recurring question of

Fourth Amendment law. See App. A11-A12 & n.1.

II.

The Fifth and Tenth Circuits have now reached opposite results on

materially indistinguishable facts.

The Tenth Circuit’s decision below and the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Wilson are

not merely in tension in the abstract; they cannot be reconciled on their facts.

In Wilson, police sought a warrant to search an apartment for a firearm used in a

public altercation weeks earlier, based primarily on the defendant’s association with the

residence. The warrant’s supporting affidavit recounted the incident, in which the

suspect brandished a pistol during a verbal altercation at a restaurant and then drove

away from the scene; labeled the apartment to be searched as the suspect’s “residence”;3

noted that the suspect had been seen there; stated that police had observed the suspect’s

Although the Fifth Circuit was skeptical of the affidavit’s assertion that the defendant lived at the

apartment, noting that the claim was “dubious, at best,” its probable-cause analysis assumed that the

apartment was the defendant’s residence. Wilson, 153 F.4th at 485-86 & n.24.

car (which the victim had identified) parked at the apartment a few days after the

altercation; and asserted that items “related to” the incident were “believed to be

located” at the apartment. Wilson, 482-83, 485-89 & n.36.

The affidavit at issue here suffers from the same defect that the Fifth Circuit

found fatal in Wilson. Detective Sloan sought to search the Iliff Lane house based only

on the fact that Mr. Becker and his car had been seen there weeks after the road-rage

incident. App. A4. To connect the incident to the house, the affidavit offered nothing

more than the generalized assertion that “[a] firearm is not normally disposed of after

the commission of a crime.” Id. That the affidavit in Wilson contained no rationale at

all, whereas the affidavit here supplied a generic one, is a distinction without a difference

for nexus purposes: a conclusory proposition that would be true in every gun case

supplies no case-specific fact tying this weapon to this home. As in Wilson, then, “the

affidavit offered nothing—no observations, no inferences, no corroborated tips—

linking [the road-rage incident] to [the Iliff Lane house].” 153 F.4th at 485.

Consequently, in each case, a gun was involved in a public altercation; police

located a residence associated with the suspect and noted sightings of him and his

vehicle there; the affidavit offered no observation of a firearm at the home, no tip that

a weapon was stored there, and no reports or sightings of criminal activity at the

residence; and the affidavit bridged the gap between the crime and the home with a

conclusory assertion that the firearm was “believed to be located” at the residence, or

“still likely” to be found at any place “associated with” the suspect. Compare App. A4,

A10-A14, with Wilson, 153 F.4th at 482-83, 485-89 & n.36. On these materially

indistinguishable nexus showings, the two circuits reached opposite results. The panel

below acknowledged as much, declining to follow Wilson because it was “inconsistent

with [Tenth Circuit] precedents.” App. A12 n.1.

III.

The Tenth Circuit’s approach is wrong.

The Tenth Circuit’s rule is wrong on the merits because it allows an officer’s

conclusion to displace the facts that the Fourth Amendment requires a neutral

magistrate to weigh. The rule below cannot be squared with this Court’s decision in

Illinois v. Gates and the warrant requirement it protects. Gates holds that an affidavit must

give the magistrate judge the underlying facts, not the officer’s bottom line: “Sufficient

information must be presented to the magistrate to allow that official to determine

probable cause; his action cannot be a mere ratification of the bare conclusions of

others.” 462 U.S. at 239. An affidavit that supplies only “a mere conclusory statement”

is insufficient, because it “gives the magistrate virtually no basis at all for making a

judgment regarding probable cause.” Id. Indeed, the “essential protection of the warrant

requirement . . . is in ‘requiring that the usual inferences which reasonable men draw

from evidence be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged

by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.’” Id.

at 240 (cleaned up) (quoting Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)).

The affidavit here does exactly what Gates forbids, as its only link between the

road-rage incident and the Iliff Lane house was the affiant’s conclusory assertion that

“[a] firearm is not normally disposed of after the commission of a crime,” and, thus,

the gun sought was “still likely to be found in any location or vehicle to be searched

associated with [Mr. Becker].” App. A4. That is not a fact from which the magistrate

could independently assess probable cause; it is the affiant’s conclusion, offered as its

own justification. That Detective Sloan offered a reason for that conclusion—the stock

statement that firearms are not usually discarded after crimes—does not cure the defect.

That premise is a generalization about what gun users typically do, and, even assuming

it is sound, it establishes probable cause to search a particular home only if the affidavit

presents facts showing that this suspect, under these circumstances, likely conformed

to that general pattern. The affidavit here supplied none: nothing about Mr. Becker or

the road-rage incident suggested that he, in particular, had kept the firearm at the Iliff

Lane house rather than discarded it or stored it elsewhere.

Nor was this generalization even tied to the type of crime under investigation. It

asserted that firearms are not normally disposed of “after the commission of a crime,”

any crime, and the gun was, “therefore, still likely to be found in any location or vehicle

to be searched associated with” Mr. Becker. That is boilerplate in the most literal sense:

a proposition that could be copied, unaltered, into the affidavit for a warrant to search

a home in any investigation where police suspected a gun was involved. It cannot be

true that the probable-cause requirement is satisfied in every gun case by the mere

insertion of a generalized statement that applies equally in each.

Moreover, such a categorical presumption is especially unwarranted for firearms

used in public crimes. Unlike the “mail, passports, or bank records” that people

inherently keep at home, a gun displayed in public is “portable, easily transferred, and

often quickly discarded.” Wilson, 153 F.4th at 486. The premise that such a weapon will

be at the suspect’s residence, and will remain there weeks later, is not a self-evident,

common sense inference; it is a contestable, empirical claim that requires factual

support in the particular case. See id.; Charest, 602 F.2d at 1017 (“Common sense tells us

that it is unlikely that a murderer would hide in his own home a gun used to shoot

someone.”). Gates and the neutral-magistrate requirement demand that the affidavit

furnish that support, not that the magistrate judge accept the officer’s say-so. By holding

otherwise, the Tenth Circuit collapsed two distinct questions the Fourth Amendment

keeps separate: probable cause to believe the suspect committed a crime, and probable

cause to believe evidence of it will be found in his home. See Wilson, 153 F.4th at 485.

As the Tenth Circuit’s approval of the affidavit here indicates, its “special class”

approach allows the presumption that firearms are stored at home to do the work the

Fourth Amendment assigns to the magistrate judge, “hollow[ing] out the Fourth

Amendment’s nexus requirement” and reducing the magistrate judge’s role to “a

ministerial rubber stamp.” Wilson, 153 F.4th at 485.

IV.

This question of constitutional law is important and recurring.

The question presented warrants this Court’s review because it governs a large

and recurring category of searches, and because the Tenth Circuit’s approach

undermines a structural protection at the heart of the Fourth Amendment.

As this Court has repeatedly explained, “[f]reedom in one’s own dwelling is the

archetype of the privacy protection secured by the Fourth Amendment.” Lange v.

California, 594 U.S. 295, 303 (2021) (cleaned up); see also Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6

(2013) (“[W]hen it comes to the Fourth Amendment, the home is first among equals.”);

Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 810 (1984) (observing that “the home is sacred in

Fourth Amendment terms not primarily because of the occupants’ possessory interests

in the premises, but because of their privacy interests in the activities that take place

within”). The warrant requirement safeguards that privacy by requiring that the

inferences supporting probable cause be “drawn by a neutral and detached

magistrate”—not the affiant-officer himself. Johnson, 333 U.S. at 13-14. “When the right

of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a

judicial officer, not by a policeman or Government enforcement agent.” Id. at 14. The

Tenth Circuit’s “special class” approach thus erodes the warrant requirement’s

structural guarantee where it matters most, by permitting officers to search a home

based solely on their own generalized inferences about where guns are kept rather than

a neutral magistrate judge’s case-specific assessment of whether the particular firearm

sought is likely to be found in the specific home to be searched.

Moreover, the question presented here is almost certain to recur. Firearm

offenses make up one of the largest categories of criminal prosecutions in the federal

system, encompassing 12% of cases in fiscal year 2025, and surpassed only by

immigration and drug crimes. U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, 2025 Annual Report, 14 (2025).

Roughly one third of aggravated-assault offenses in 2022-2024 reported by local police

to the Federal Bureau of Investigation involved a firearm. U.S. Dep’t of Just., Fed.

Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Just. Info. Servs. Div., Aggravated Assault with a

Firearm, 2022-2024 (Mar. 2026). Because firearm offenses are prosecuted in great

numbers in both federal and state court, the question this case presents—how much

information an affidavit must provide to connect a gun crime to a suspect’s home

before a warrant may issue—is one that courts will likely confront again and again. Cf.,

e.g., United States v. Magee, No. 25-cr-03, 2026 WL 1030324, at *1, *5-6 (E.D. La. Apr. 16,

2026) (relying on Wilson, 153 F.4th at 485-86, in concluding that although affidavit gave

rise to probable cause that suspect was illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon,

it failed to establish probable cause to believe that suspect’s house contained firearms

where it alleged only that suspect’s car had been parked there once and was registered

to the address without information “to suggest that he held firearms in that residence”),

gov’t appeal docketed then voluntarily dismissed, No. 26-30298 (5th Cir. June 12, 2026).

The affidavit in this case illustrates how routine the issue likely is. Detective

Sloan’s nexus showing rested on a single, evidently boilerplate proposition—that “[a]

firearm is not normally disposed of after the commission of a crime, and [] is, therefore,

still likely to be found in any location or vehicle to be searched associated with [the

suspect].” App. A4. That is not a fact peculiar to this investigation; it is a stock recitation

that, under the Tenth Circuit’s approach, will validate the search of a home in any case

involving a firearm. The decision below thus does not resolve an isolated dispute. It

supplies a categorical answer that will likely authorize a large and recurring class of

residential searches until this Court intervenes.

This case presents an ideal vehicle.

This case presents an ideal vehicle to address the question presented. The issue

was raised below, fully litigated, and decided on the merits; Mr. Becker preserved his

challenge to the denial of his motion to suppress through a conditional plea, see Fed. R.

Crim. P. 11(a)(2); and no jurisdictional or procedural barrier stands in the way.

Moreover, the question is dispositive of the judgment below: the Tenth Circuit affirmed

solely on probable cause and, having found the warrant valid, expressly declined to

reach the government’s alternative good-faith argument. App. A14. A decision applying

the Fifth Circuit’s rule would require the court below to confront that reserved question

for the first time on remand. See, e.g., Chatrie v. United States, 609 U.S. ---, 2026 WL

1855568, at *16-17 (2026) (having concluded that Fourth Amendment search had

occurred when police accessed cell-phone location data, remanding for Fourth Circuit

to consider, in the first instance, whether search warrant complied with the Fourth

Amendment’s warrant requirement).

The facts also frame the question with unusual precision. The supporting

affidavit’s link between the road-rage incident and the Iliff Lane house rested on a single

assertion: that a firearm used in a crime was “still likely to be found in any location or

vehicle to be searched associated with” Mr. Becker because such weapons are not

typically discarded. App. A4. There is no confounding evidence to muddy the analysis:

no firearm was seen at the Iliff Lane house, no informant placed one there, and no

suspicious activity was observed at the residence. The case thus isolates the precise

question that divides the circuits: whether the presumption that firearms are stored at

home can, without more, establish probable cause to search a defendant’s residence.

Conclusion

This Court should grant Mr. Becker’s petition.

Respectfully submitted,