United States v. Williams

── United States v. Williams ── Case No.: 24-1510 Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Date: March 17, 2026 Category: General Appellate Case: 24-1510 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 03/17/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS March 17, 2026 Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. No. 24-1510 KYLEAR WILLIAMS, Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado (D.C. No. 1:24-CR-00112-PAB-1) _________________________________ Gail K. Johnson of Johnson & Klein, PLLC, Boulder, Colorado, for Defendant- Appellant. J. Bishop Grewell, Assistant United States Attorney (Peter McNeilly, United States Attorney, with him on the briefs), Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff- Appellee. _________________________________ Before PHILLIPS, KELLY, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ We must decide whether the Fourth Amendment permitted a protective sweep of a car after the driver was arrested and handcuffed. Everyone agrees that the police developed reasonable suspicion that the driver was armed and  Appellate Case: 24-1510 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 03/17/2026 Page: 2 dangerous. But with the arrest, any safety risks that the driver posed to the officers ended. Still, the police conducted a protective sweep of the driver’s area rather than let the passenger-owner leave it legally parked or drive it away. Within seconds of beginning the sweep, officers recovered from under the driver’s seat a loaded handgun and a magazine containing ammunition. A federal grand jury indicted the driver for possessing ammunition after a felony conviction. In response to the driver’s motion to suppress the firearm and ammunition, the government argued that the protective sweep was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. It contended that objectively reasonable officers would have suspected that the passenger, too, was armed and dangerous. To support this view, the government projected the driver’s alarming criminal history and gang ties to the passenger. It argued that prudent officers would reasonably suspect a passenger-girlfriend of a gang-associated boyfriend as a threat to access a hidden weapon from inside the car and to use it in a quixotic attempt to free him from four alert, armed officers. The district court approved the protective sweep and denied the suppression motion. Agreeing with the government, the court ruled that the officers had reasonable suspicion that the girlfriend-passenger was armed and dangerous. It relied solely on her “romantic relationship” with the boyfriend- driver. But this amounts to a criminality-by-association test, when the governing test instead requires that we consider the totality of circumstances. The circumstances of this passenger include these: she produced a valid 2  Appellate Case: 24-1510 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 03/17/2026 Page: 3 driver’s license, current registration, and proof of insurance for her car; she was polite, calm, and cooperative throughout the stop; and she committed no crime and was not suspected of being involved in any. We conclude that the prot