United States v. Arsenio Clayton

── United States v. Arsenio Clayton ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Date: April 10, 2026 Category: General NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0162n.06 Case No. 25-5713 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Apr 10, 2026 KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR v. ) THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF ) TENNESSEE ARSENIO CLAYTON, ) Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION ) Before: GIBBONS, THAPAR, and LARSEN, Circuit Judges. THAPAR, Circuit Judge. During a family fight, Arsenio Clayton fired a gun into the air. Deputies then found that loaded gun in a plastic grocery bag on top of Clayton’s car. Clayton moved to suppress the gun as the product of an unlawful search. But the district court concluded that the deputies would have inevitably discovered the gun during an inventory search of Clayton’s car. Seeing no error, we affirm. I. One morning, Shelby County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a report that a man in a white shirt, black pants, and sunglasses had fired shots into the air outside an apartment complex. When the deputies arrived, they found Arsenio Clayton wearing the outfit described by the complainant. Clayton was trying to jumpstart his car, which he told the deputies had “broke[n] down” in the middle of the street. See R. 31, Ex. 1, 01:21. As the deputies approached, Clayton placed a gray plastic grocery bag on his car’s roof. Clayton cooperated while the deputies patted No. 25-5713, United States v. Clayton him down, assuring them that he didn’t have any weapons on his person. He then explained that he had been arguing with his sister, who lived in a nearby apartment with her son. Deputy Richard Phillips spoke with Clayton’s nephew in the apartment’s doorway. Clayton’s nephew stated that Clayton had been “acting crazy” all night. R. 31, Ex. 2, 00:54. That morning, Clayton had argued with—and then threatened—his sister about belongings she left in his car. Clayton then “pulled out a gun and shot in the air.” Id. at 01:04–01:06. He tried to drive away, but his car stalled in the street. Phillips asked the nephew if Clayton’s firearm was still inside the vehicle. He responded, “More than likely, yeah.” Id. at 01:24. The nephew then pointed out the location where the shell casing from Clayton’s shot might have fallen. When the deputies searched that area, they discovered a spent casing about 15 feet behind Clayton’s car. Once the deputies recovered the shell casing, they handcuffed Clayton beside his car. Moments later, Clayton’s sister emerged from her apartment and confirmed her son’s account of the shooting to the deputies. At that point, the deputies arrested Clayton and placed him in the backseat of a cruiser. Deputy Keith Keppen kept searching for the gun. He first looked inside the car, peering through the open driver’s side door. He then turned to the plastic bag on the roof of the car, which was loosely tied at the top but had a tear near the bottom. When Keppen reached for the bag, he felt a hard object in it with “some weight to it.” R. 47, Pg. ID 104. Through the tear, he “pulled [the object] out