United States v. Dent, 867 F.3d 37

FBI monitoring a wiretap linked Dent to an apartment where agents believed individually bagged crack cocaine was present and Dent was not inside.
While agents applied for a search warrant, three officers entered the apartment without announcing their authority, pushed in the door, detained occupants (Dominique Jackson and Jonathan Banyan), and conducted a security sweep.
During the sweep officers observed Banyan attempting to hide a bag under an air mattress and briefly looked under the mattress for officer safety, seeing what they believed were drugs but leaving them in place.
After detaining occupants, officers awaited and later executed a warrant; the warrant seizure recovered substantial quantities of cocaine base, heroin, a revolver, and drug paraphernalia.
Dent moved to suppress evidence seized under the warrant, arguing the warrantless entry and sweep were so egregious as to bar application of the independent-source (and related) exceptions; the district court denied suppression.
Dent pleaded guilty with a conditional appeal preserving the suppression issue; the First Circuit affirms, holding the warrant and its procurement were untainted and the independent-source exception applies.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether evidence seized pursuant to a later warrant must be suppressed because officers previously entered and conducted a warrantless sweep	Government: The warrant and its procurement were untainted by what officers saw in the sweep; independent-source exception permits admission	Dent: The initial unlawful entry and sweep were so egregious they foreclose independent-source application; sweep enabled discovery that would not have occurred otherwise	Held: Evidence admissible under independent-source exception; no showing warrant or decision to seek it was tainted and conduct did not warrant exception to exception
Whether the subjective risk that contraband would be moved converts a protective sweep into an impermissible search invalidating the warrant	Government: Protective sweep was for officer safety and preservation of evidence while warrant was sought; any observations did not infect the warrant	Dent: The sweep effectively froze the scene and prevented loss, meaning the later warrant search depended on the prior intrusion	Held: Court assumes sweep improper for analysis but Dent failed to show Banyan or drugs would have been gone absent entry; exigency testimony alone insufficient to prove loss would have occurred

Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533 (1988) (independent-source exception allows admission of evidence discovered by an untainted, later search)
Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796 (1984) (legality of an initial entry is irrelevant if there is an independent source for the warrant)
United States v. Madrid, 152 F.3d 1034 (8th Cir. 1998) (refused inevitable-discovery where police misconduct was severe)
United States v. Palumbo, 742 F.2d 656 (1st Cir. 1984) (observing that freezing of evidence by an earlier seizure could affect inevitable-discovery analysis)
United States v. Fermin, 771 F.3d 71 (1st Cir. 2014) (standard of review for suppression rulings)