United States v. Terrance Hayes

── United States v. Terrance Hayes ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Date: May 11, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 25-1649 ___________________________ United States of America Plaintiff - Appellee v. Terrance Payne Hayes Defendant - Appellant ____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Western ____________ Submitted: January 16, 2026 Filed: May 11, 2026 ____________ Before SMITH, BENTON, and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges. ____________ ERICKSON, Circuit Judge. Following a home invasion that left Terrance Hayes injured and the intruder dead, Hayes told investigators he had shot the intruder in self-defense using a firearm located in his home. Based on his admissions, Hayes was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and possessing a stolen firearm. Hayes moved to suppress the statements he made to law enforcement, arguing they violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. After the district court1 denied Hayes’s motion to suppress, he conditionally pled guilty and was sentenced to a 90-month term of imprisonment. Hayes appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress and the substantive reasonableness of his sentence. We affirm the denial of Hayes’s motion to suppress and dismiss the appeal of his sentence. I. BACKGROUND In the early morning hours of July 17, 2023, Sioux City police officers responded to a 911 call from Hayes’s residence indicating that an intruder had broken into the home. The intruder, armed with a knife, stabbed Hayes multiple times. Hayes managed to retrieve a firearm and shoot the intruder. When officers arrived, both Hayes and the intruder were transported to the hospital. Hayes was severely injured and required surgery, while the intruder died from his injuries. A search of Hayes’s residence revealed a semiautomatic handgun underneath a couch. Approximately an hour after the incident, Detective Justus Knudsen and another detective from the Sioux City police department interviewed Hayes at the hospital while he was awaiting surgery. During the six-minute interview, Hayes told detectives that he did not know the person who broke into his home or the reason for the attack. Hayes denied owning or possessing a gun, explaining that he shot the intruder with a gun he took from the intruder’s waistband. The next day, Detective Knudsen and two other detectives returned to conduct a follow-up interview of Hayes. When the officers arrived, Hayes was confined to a hospital bed recovering from his surgery. Hayes agreed to talk with the detectives and during the interview, which lasted an hour and twenty minutes, Hayes told the 1 The Honorable Leonard T. Strand, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Iowa, adopting the Report and Recommendation of the Honorable Kelly K.E. Mahoney, Chief United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Iowa. -2- detectives that his wife began screaming when an intruder broke into their home. Hayes said he rushed into the living room to find a man armed with two knives. Hayes once again asserted that he was able to obtain a firearm from the intruder’s waistband and shoot him while the two men struggled and the intruder was stabbing him. The detectives were skeptical that Hayes had taken the gun from the intruder during a knife fight and pressed him to explain exactly how the gun had come