United States v. Tavaryyuan Johnson

RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 26a0291p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT ┐ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, │ Plaintiff-Appellee, │ > No. 25-3691 │ v. │ │ TAVARYYUAN JOHNSON, │ Defendant-Appellant. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Columbus. No. 2:22-cr-00117-5—Edmund A. Sargus, Jr., District Judge. Argued: July 21, 2026 Decided and Filed: October 27, 2026 Before: MOORE, NALBANDIAN, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ARGUED: Sarah E. Nelson, FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. Kimberly L. Robinson, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Kevin M. Schad, FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. Kimberly L. Robinson, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee. NALBANDIAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which MOORE and MATHIS, JJ., concurred, as to all issues except Count Two. MOORE, J. (pp. 29–33), delivered a separate opinion of the court, in which MATHIS, J., concurred, as to Count Two.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 2 _________________ OPINION _________________ NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judge. Tavaryyuan Johnson went to trial for his role in a prolific drug-trafficking organization operating in Columbus, Ohio. A jury convicted him on the conspiracy- and drug-related counts alleged in the indictment. He now appeals, claiming multiple errors throughout the trial process. In terms of pretrial errors, he argues that the district court erred by denying his motions to suppress evidence from three searches that yielded large quantities of drugs and other contraband. Second, he argues that the district court erred at trial by allowing the government to amend the indictment mid-trial. Third, he argues that the district court erred by admitting hearsay at trial. And finally, he argues that his conviction on the indictment’s conspiracy count isn’t supported by sufficient evidence and goes against the manifest weight of the evidence. A majority of this Court concludes that the district court erred by amending the indictment mid-trial. Judge Moore has authored a separate opinion with the majority view on that issue. Aside from that, we affirm. I. This case started with a broken headlight. The car bearing that broken light belonged to Tavaryyuan Johnson, who was driving when officers with the Columbus Police Department (CPD) pulled him over in the early hours of September 4, 2020. That traffic stop and its fruits ended up comprising, along with evidence obtained from two other searches, the bulk of the evidence against Johnson at trial on conspiracy- and individual-level drug charges. We’ll describe the searches and the trial in chronological order. A. After stopping Johnson, the officers discovered he was driving on a suspended license. And Johnson’s license suspension stemmed from an earlier OVI (Ohio’s term for a DUI) offense. So the officers arrested Johnson.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 3 The officers searched Johnson and his car—the former as a search incident to arrest. That search yielded several bundles of low-dollar-value bills in his pockets. Then their attention turned to Johnson’s car, which they impounded under CPD policy. A few factors played into that decision. First, the officers couldn’t release the car back into Johnson’s care because he couldn’t legally drive it away on a suspended license. They also didn’t want to leave the car at the site of the stop because the neighborhood was a hot spot for crime. And they couldn’t release it to a third party with Johnson’s consent because there was no one else on the scene when they impounded the car.1 So having impounded the car, the officers took an inventory of its contents. But what started as an inventory search came up with a lot more than spare napkins and forgotten coupons stuffed in the glove box—specifically, heroin, cocaine, and loose bullets. A CPD officer noticed a small access panel on the center console “sticking out through the shadows [that] was unhooked on the bottom.” R.916, Mot. to Suppress Hr’g Tr., PageID 4944. The government introduced the following photo of that panel, taken from the officer’s body camera footage: 1That last point held true, in the officer’s telling, even though Johnson’s uncle Cordell Washington (who’ll figure more into the story shortly) eventually arrived. First off, Washington arrived after the inventory search had already begun—and after it had yielded illegal contraband. On top of that, Washington was “aggressive,” refused to back away from the scene, and “got into a physical scuffle,” leading officers to conclude that he wasn’t an appropriate custodian for the vehicle. R.916, Mot. to Suppress Hr’g Tr., PageID 4922.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 4 R.873-2, PageID 5022. The red square, which we’ve superimposed onto a screen-capture from the footage, surrounds the panel the officer mentioned in his testimony at the suppression hearing. The officer testified that he observed the panel not to be “fully in place,” as though it had “been hastily replaced.” R.916, PageID 4954. Moreover, the rest of the center console appeared “grim[y],” while the bottom edge of the panel—the part sticking out—“appeared like it had been wiped off, like somebody had been brushing up against it multiple times.” Id. at PageID 4944. So the officer reached toward the panel, which gave way and fell to the floor “as soon as [he] touched it.” Id. And behind the panel, the officer saw baggies containing what the officer believed to be (and turned out to be) black tar heroin. The officers’ discovery of the heroin expanded a mere inventory into a full-blown investigatory search. The officers started removing other panels around the center console, like those covering the radio and heater unit, to search for more drugs. And they felt they had “free access to continue searching other places” that they wouldn’t have examined while carrying out the more limited inventory. Id. at PageID 4950. In total, the inventory-turned-automobile search yielded approximately 234 grams of heroin, 334 grams of cocaine, and loose rounds of ammunition. One aspect of the cocaine bears mentioning. In its initial assessment, the government classified it as cocaine base (more commonly known as crack cocaine). But at trial, the government’s lab analyst testified that, upon reexamination, she found the center-console cocaine to primarily comprise powder cocaine—a different substance carrying substantially lower penalties by drug weight than crack cocaine. Still, 0.5 grams of the substance tested as crack cocaine. B. It turns out that Johnson’s traffic stop presaged something bigger. Multiple police agencies had their eyes on the Sullivant Avenue area in west Columbus—where the CPD searched and impounded Johnson’s car—because, according to an officer’s testimony, it was “[t]he highest crime area in the city of Columbus every year for narcotics [and] prostitution.” R.1386, Trial Tr. Vol. 8, PageID 15850.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 5 Specifically, police were monitoring the Saultz-Washington conspiracy, a sex- and drug- trafficking organization (DTO) running for more than ten years in the Sullivant area. The DTO earned its moniker from its two executives—Pat Saultz and Cordell Washington, Johnson’s uncle from earlier in the story. The Saultz-Washington DTO operated multiple drug houses from which it conducted business by renting properties to “drug dealers that would sell out of the house[s] . . . and have people coming in and out throughout the day and night.” Id. at PageID 14248–49, 14384. After years of surveillance—and nearly two years after police searched Johnson’s car— an increase in the DTO’s activity prompted the police to close in with a rapid series of arrests and searches. Two warranted property searches are relevant to this appeal—both of which happened about 21 months after the search of Johnson’s car. The first search targeted Johnson’s residence at 430A South Warren: one side of a duplex co-owned by Saultz and Washington that officers believed served at least partially as one of the DTO’s drug houses. The other search targeted the home of Priscilla Washington—Cordell’s mother and Johnson’s grandmother. We’ll describe both searches and their fruits in turn, starting with the affidavits underlying the warrants for each. 1. First up, Johnson’s residence at 430A South Warren Avenue in Columbus, which we’ll refer to as “430A Warren” for brevity’s sake. Police executed a search warrant at that address in June 2022. The police supported their application for a warrant to search 430A Warren with a lengthy affidavit. Across nearly thirty pages, that affidavit mentions 430A Warren only to describe its location and predicted contents. By the government’s own description on appeal, the affidavit doesn’t contain any information directly linking 430A Warren to any drug-trafficking activities. That said, it explicitly identifies 430B Warren—the other half of the duplex—as a drug house, supported by a controlled purchase of drugs conducted by a confidential source at that address. And it identifies several linkages between 430B Warren’s inhabitant—Tyler Bourdo, another defendant (but not appellant) in this case—and the Saultz-Washington DTO.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 6 The warrant affidavit describes Johnson’s own activities in three ways. First, the affiant states a CPD officer informed him—in September 2020, almost two years before the search- warrant application—that Saultz and Washington distributed drugs “with the assistance of Tavaryyaun [sic] Johnson.” R.706-1, PageID 2714 (capitalization modified). The affiant doesn’t provide any further details of his conversations with the CPD about Johnson. Nor does the affiant mention anything about the search of Johnson’s car. Second, the affiant relates a letter he received from a confidential informant who stated, among other things, that he “had information on the group of individuals that were involved in narcotics distribution . . . on the west-side of Columbus,” followed by a list including Johnson. Id. at PageID 2724. Although the officers corroborated much of the confidential informant’s other assertions, the confidential informant didn’t offer any details about the recency or scope of Johnson’s “involv[ment] in narcotics distribution,” or whether that involvement merely meant that Johnson sold drugs independently. See id. And finally, the affiant relates a wiretapped phone call between Saultz and Johnson in the days before the 430A Warren search, in which Johnson complains to Saultz about an upcoming drug test required by his probation program. Saultz offered Johnson “a drink . . . that will help throw off the drug test,” and advised Johnson to “stop touching it” in preparation for the drug test. Id. at PageID 2730. And Johnson joked about how “his attorney [thought] he is a drug addict.” Id. A magistrate judge approved the warrant and the police searched 430A Warren on June 29, 2022. There, they found approximately 54 grams of crack cocaine, a digital scale, rubber gloves, Narcan, cell phones, a handgun, ammunition, and approximately $44,000 in cash, among other suspected contraband. 2. The second house search took place at Priscilla Washington’s house on 1214 Smith Road. Because we already use her last name to refer to her son Cordell, we’ll refer to Priscilla by her first name. Again, the police sought a search warrant supported by a probable-cause affidavit. This affidavit was markedly different from the affidavit supporting the 430A Warren search warrant.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 7 For example, the 1214 Smith affidavit dedicates about three pages to detailing law enforcement’s investigation into the Saultz-Washington’s “[n]exus to 1214 Smith Road.” R.706-2, PageID 2765–67. The affiant declares a few different facts supporting that nexus. First, law enforcement observed Cordell Washington “frequently come and go” from 1214 Smith. Id. at PageID 2765. Moreover, a few of those comings and goings directly preceded “what investigators believe[d] to be drug transactions.” Id. In one instance, law enforcement intercepted two phone calls between Washington and an unknown male to set up a meeting. After the two agreed to meet, Washington left his home, arrived at 1214 Smith, carried a “medium sized box” back out to his car, and drove to a known drug house to meet with a man whom police believed had been on the other end of the line. Id. at PageID 2766–67. Washington and the caller entered the drug house, where officers believed they conducted a drug transaction. A magistrate judge approved the warrant and police searched 1214 Smith on July 1, 2022. There, they found a safe containing Johnson’s Social Security card and car title. And atop those innocuous papers sat six guns, bundles of cash, and large quantities of drugs: approximately 253 grams of fentanyl, 226 grams of cocaine, and 14 grams of a fentanyl-cocaine mixture. One investigator testified at trial that during the search, Priscilla denied knowing about the contraband found in “Tavaryyuan’s safe.” * * * In sum, the CPD collected evidence against Johnson across three searches. First, the September 2020 car search turned up approximately 234 grams of heroin, 334 grams of cocaine (of which half a gram was crack, the rest powder), and loose rounds of ammunition. Second, the June 2022 search of Johnson’s residence turned up approximately 54 grams of crack cocaine, a digital scale, rubber gloves, plastic baggies, a razor blade, lottery tickets, Narcan, six phones, a Glock handgun, ammunition, and approximately $44,000 in cash. And finally, the July 2022 search of Priscilla’s home yielded approximately 253 grams of fentanyl, 226 grams of cocaine, and 14 grams of a fentanyl-cocaine mixture in a safe along with Johnson’s Social Security card, his car title, six guns, and large bundles of cash. Johnson moved to suppress all three buckets of evidence, and the district court denied those motions.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 8 C. After a few superseding indictments, a federal grand jury charged Johnson (among many others) for his role in the Saultz-Washington DTO. Seven counts named Johnson. Count One charged Johnson and 21 others for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl, cocaine, cocaine base, heroin, and various other drugs. Counts Two, Eight, and Eleven charged Johnson individually for possessing, with intent to distribute, the drugs found in the car search, the search of 430AWarren, and the search of 1214 Smith, respectively. Finally, Counts Nine, Twelve, and Thirteen charged Johnson for possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug- trafficking crime. All but two defendants took plea deals, leaving Johnson and one other to go to trial. During trial, the government realized that the evidence underlying Count Two—the drugs found in Johnson’s car—differed from the terms of the indictment: instead of the more-than-280 grams of crack cocaine originally charged, the government found only half a gram of crack (with the remainder being powder). So it requested, and the district court granted, an amendment to Count Two’s text reflecting the change from a 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) cocaine-base offense to a 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) cocaine offense. And after hearing testimony and evidence for about a month, the jury convicted Johnson on Counts One, Two, Eight, and Eleven, acquitting him on the remaining counts. Johnson moved for a judgment of acquittal and for a new trial, both of which the district court denied. And the district court sentenced him to 200 months’ imprisonment on each count of conviction, to be served concurrently. Johnson appealed. II. Johnson raises four arguments on appeal. First, he asks us to overturn the district court’s denial of his motions to suppress evidence from the government’s searches of his car, his house, and his grandmother’s house. Second, he asks us to reverse his conviction on Count Two of the indictment because the government amended that count’s text at trial. Third, he complains of the district court’s decision to admit one of his grandmother’s out-of-court statements into evidence. And fourth, he claims that his conviction on Count One isn’t supported by sufficient evidence and goes against the manifest weight of the evidence. We’re unconvinced by all but his  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 9 indictment-amendment argument. To explain why, we’ll walk through those arguments one-by- one below, with a caveat: Judge Moore’s separate writing explains the majority view as to the indictment issue, while my views are my own. A. We’ll start with Johnson’s motions to suppress. He asked the district court to suppress the three tranches of evidence recovered during the searches of his car, his house, and his grandmother’s house. The district court denied all three requests, and Johnson challenges those denials on appeal. We apply a mixed standard of review to motions to suppress, assessing the district court’s factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Simmons, 129 F.4th 382, 386 (6th Cir. 2025). And we conduct that review deferentially, “consider[ing] the evidence in the light most favorable to the government.” Id. (citation modified). Applying that standard of review to Johnson’s arguments, we affirm the district court’s denial of all three motions to suppress. 1. Johnson moved to suppress the evidence collected during the September 2020 car search, arguing that the police shouldn’t have impounded his car, let alone conducted an inventory search after impoundment. We disagree. The Fourth Amendment declares “[t]he right of the people to be secure . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures” and provides that the right “shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. The “touchstone” of that guarantee is reasonableness. Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 459 (2011) (citation modified). A search is reasonable if the government supports it with a warrant obtained upon a showing of probable cause. Maryland v. Dyson, 527 U.S. 465, 466 (1999) (per curiam); United States v. Haddix, 239 F.3d 766, 768 (6th Cir. 2001) (describing the warrant requirement as “the very heart of the Fourth Amendment”). In a delineated set of circumstances, though, the  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 10 government can conduct a search without a warrant—so long as they have probable cause. See, e.g., King, 563 U.S. at 459. And in some situations, even the probable-cause requirement slips away. One exception to the warrant and probable-cause requirements is relevant here: the vehicle inventory search. Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 371 (1987). The parties frame their dispute around the inventory-search exception. Our analysis under that exception proceeds in two stages. First, we ask if the police “lawfully [took] custody of [the] vehicle.” United States v. Smith, 510 F.3d 641, 651 (6th Cir. 2007) (citation modified). Under one avenue to lawful custody, police can justify their decision to impound by reference to “legitimate public safety and community caretaking purposes,” United States v. Kimes, 246 F.3d 800, 804 (6th Cir. 2001), so long as the ultimate impoundment decision was made “according to standard criteria and on the basis of something other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity,” Bertine, 479 U.S. at 375; see also United States v. Snoddy, 976 F.3d 630, 634 (6th Cir. 2020) (“A vehicle is lawfully seized and, thus, subject to an inventory search if it is lawfully impounded.”). If we conclude that the vehicle was lawfully seized, we shift focus to our second inquiry: whether the inventory search enabled by the impoundment unfolded without investigatory purpose and “according to standard police procedures.” United States v. Hockenberry, 730 F.3d 645, 659 (6th Cir. 2013) (citation modified). So “officers do not enjoy their accustomed discretion” in the inventory-search context: “they simply follow the applicable policy.” Id. (citation modified). Moreover, the search must be designed to “protect[] the [inventoried] property from unauthorized interference,” “guard against claims of theft, vandalism, or negligence,” or “avert any danger to police or others that may have been posed by the [inventoried] property.” Bertine, 479 U.S. at 373; see also Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 811 n.1 (1996). Importantly, then, an inventory search must be “sufficiently tailored” to those purposes. Hockenberry, 730 F.3d at 659 (citation modified). Because the CPD impoundment policy is relevant throughout our analysis, we’ll start there. Three aspects of that policy bear mentioning. First, the policy vests officers with discretion to choose between three options, in descending order of preferability, when they stop an impoundable vehicle:  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 11 a. Release the vehicle to the owner, operator, or to another person with the consent of the owner or operator provided there is no legal requirement or need to impound the vehicle, and there are no overdue unpaid parking fines held against the vehicle; b. Park the vehicle in a legal location, secure it, keep the keys with the operator’s property (if arrested), and document the actions taken on the CAD; or c. Impound the vehicle. R.873-1, PageID 5014. Second, the policy short-circuits that discretion where, as here, the “vehicle is registered in the arrested person’s name and the arrest involved . . . driving under an OVI suspension.” Id. at PageID 5016–17 (capitalization modified). In those cases, the policy directive instructs the officer to “[f]ollow the impounding procedures” outlined elsewhere in the directive and “[s]eize the vehicle.” Id. at PageID 5016. And third, the policy provides that, once an officer reaches the point of conducting an inventory search, they may examine “all reasonably accessible areas and containers in the vehicle.” Id. at PageID 5015. The officers’ testimony at the suppression hearing, construed in the light most favorable to the government, Simmons, 129 F.4th at 386, shows that their impoundment decision and subsequent inventory search comported with CPD policy and the Fourth Amendment. Start with the impoundment decision. CPD policy directs officers to seize a stopped car if it’s (1) registered in the arrestee’s name and (2) the owner is under arrest for, among other things, driving on a license suspended because of a previous OVI. The testimony at the suppression hearing shows that officers at the scene confirmed both factors before proceeding. The officers testified—and Johnson doesn’t dispute—that the car was registered in Johnson’s name. The same goes for the nature of the offense underlying his arrest: driving under suspension for a previous OVI offense. Those two factors established the officers’ duty under CPD policy to impound the car. And the officers explained that the policy-driven decision ultimately boiled down to safeguarding the public by preventing Johnson from “driv[ing] off [and] ultimately get[ting] into another accident” or “commit[ting] another infraction.” R.916, PageID 4909. “That such a policy is consistent with legitimate public safety and community caretaking purposes is beyond question.” Kimes, 246 F.3d at 804.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 12 Johnson hasn’t made any showing that’d make us question whether the officers’ impoundment decision was made for non-investigatory purposes. He devotes only two sentences to pretext. First, he identifies the rule that “officers cannot hide an investigative search under the pretext of an inventory search.” Appellant Br., p.19 (citation modified). And second, after describing the district court’s rejection of his pretext argument, he announces that “these findings are clearly erroneous” without explaining why. Id. at p.21. Without any developed argumentation on this front, we deem any challenge to the officers’ impoundment decision on pretext grounds forfeited. See United States v. Johnson, 79 F.4th 684, 706 (6th Cir. 2023) (“Issues adverted to in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed argumentation, are deemed forfeited.” (citation modified)). Now we’ll consider the subsequent inventory search. CPD policy structures inventory searches by allowing officers to search “all reasonably accessible areas and containers in the vehicle.” R.873-1, PageID 5015. The officers didn’t exceed that scope. They testified that the panel appeared accessible because it was slightly ajar and bore indicia of being frequently handled. Moreover, the search was “sufficiently tailored,” Hockenberry, 730 F.3d at 659, to serve at least two of the three governmental interests underlying inventory searches: (1) “the protection of the owner’s property while it remains in police custody,” (2) “the protection of the police against claims or disputes over lost or stolen property,” and (3) “the protection of the police from potential danger.” South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 369 (1976); see also Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 9 n.2 (1990) (Brennan, J., concurring in the judgment). Here, the officers’ testimony supports the finding that their search of the loose panel on the center console served at least the first two governmental interests. They testified that the loose panel’s appearance—“[t]he grime had been wiped away from the opening,” it appeared “as though it had been used multiple times,” and “it was sitting ajar as though it had been replaced in a hasty manner”—lended itself to the conclusion that “maybe [Johnson] had secured valuables or something in there.” R.916, PageID 4978. We’ve blessed inventory searches of similarly unorthodox compartments in other cases. In one case, officers pulled up loose flaps of carpet that looked “as if someone could have put something underneath” and found a handgun. United States v. Jackson, 682 F.3d 448, 451–52,  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 13 456 (6th Cir. 2012). In another case, officers conducting an inventory search found a cylinder of meth tucked into a truck’s engine bay. United States v. Lumpkin, 159 F.3d 983, 985, 988 (6th Cir. 1998). And in an unpublished decision, we approved of police officers’ “dismantling of a dashboard during an inventory search” because it was “conducted pursuant to established procedures and without unlawful motive.” United States v. Stewart, 922 F.2d 842, 1991 WL 1114, at *5 (6th Cir. Jan. 8, 1991) (per curiam) (unpublished table decision). For those reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of Johnson’s motion to suppress evidence from the September 2020 car search. 2. Johnson also wants to suppress the evidence law enforcement discovered in his residence at 430A Warren. But because the officers relied in good faith on the warrant, we affirm. The government sought a search warrant for Johnson’s half of the duplex (430A Warren) from a magistrate judge. Determining probable cause requires the issuing magistrate to take into account the totality of the circumstances to make a “practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit . . . there is a fair probability” that evidence will be found at the place to be searched. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983). In reviewing the issuance of this warrant, we must ask whether the magistrate judge had “a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed” to search 430A Warren. Id. at 238– 39 (citation modified). And we review the issuing magistrate’s determination “[w]ith great deference . . . to determine whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the low bar of probable cause has been overcome.” Simmons, 129 F.4th at 386 (quoting United States v. Moore, 999 F.3d 993, 996 (6th Cir. 2021)). Like all searches, probable cause to search a home requires a showing of a “nexus between the place to be searched and the evidence to be sought.” Id. (quoting United States v. Carpenter, 360 F.3d 591, 594 (6th Cir. 2004) (en banc)). But a warrant to search a suspected drug dealer’s home can issue on a different showing. Under the “continual-and-ongoing operations theory,” a probable-cause affidavit can suffice if it furnishes a substantial basis to conclude (1) that the place to be searched is the suspect’s home and (2) that the suspect “is  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 14 engaging in continual and ongoing drug trafficking operations.” United States v. Long, 155 F.4th 829, 835 (6th Cir. 2025). To sum it up more neatly: under the continual-and-ongoing operations theory, the government can furnish probable cause to support a warrant by showing Johnson’s record of past drug convictions coupled with “recent, reliable evidence of drug activity” by Johnson. United States v. McCoy, 905 F.3d 409, 418 (6th Cir. 2018); United States v. Sumlin, 956 F.3d 879, 886 (6th Cir. 2020). Such evidence gives rise to an “inference” that fulfills the nexus requirement without direct evidence linking the place to be searched with the evidence sought. See United States v. Brown, 828 F.3d 375, 382–84 (6th Cir. 2016). But even an erroneously issued search warrant “does not always require suppression.” McCoy, 905 F.3d at 415. Under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule, evidence obtained under a deficient search warrant needn’t be suppressed if the officers conducting the search relied on the warrant in good faith. Id. at 415–16. This good-faith exception saves unlawfully obtained evidence unless “no reasonable officer would have relied on a judge-issued warrant.” Id. at 416. As relevant here, that protection disappears when officers “rel[y] on a warrant based on an affidavit so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.” Id. (quoting United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 923 (1984)). That happens when an affidavit’s pages are empty of “some modicum of evidence, however slight[,] between the criminal activity at issue and the place to be searched.” Id. (quoting United States v. White, 874 F.3d 490, 497 (6th Cir. 2017)). In other words, an affidavit is insufficient to support an officer’s “reasonable, good-faith reliance” if it is “bare bones.” United States v. Christian, 925 F.3d 305, 312 (6th Cir. 2019) (en banc). A “bare bones” affidavit “nakedly assume[s] or vaguely conclude[s], without attempting to demonstrate why, probable cause has been satisfied.” United States v. Sanders, 106 F.4th 455, 468 (6th Cir. 2024) (en banc). Our caselaw shows that an officer could in good faith rely on the affidavit here, so we needn’t address any potentially thorny issues of probable cause. United States v. O’Neill, 94 F.4th 531, 542 (6th Cir. 2024) (“Because we conclude that the officers relied on the warrant in good faith, we need not decide whether the warrant was supported by probable cause.”). For  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 15 example, in United States v. Davidson, we found that officers had probable cause—a higher bar than good-faith reliance on a warrant—to believe that a defendant’s residence contained evidence of drug trafficking based on coded telephone calls between two other people. 936 F.2d 856, 859–60 (6th Cir. 1991). Those phone calls involved coded language—“cryptic reference[s] to drugs,” as we described it—that, “viewed in connection with the totality of the circumstances presented in the [search warrant] affidavit,” justified a probable-cause finding. Id. And the other “star[s]” in the “totality of the circumstances constellation,” Sanders, 106 F.4th at 463 (citation modified), included the defendant’s “frequent meetings” with other known drug-traffickers, Davidson, 936 F.2d at 859. Here, the officers had a good-faith basis to believe that Johnson was affiliated with a drug trafficker and that he’d been communicating in coded language implying bulk-scale drug transactions—both as a result of the recorded phone call with Saultz that took place just days before the search at 430A Warren. That recording captured Johnson complaining that he had to submit to a drug test as directed by his probation officer. Saultz offered a “drink he [would] bring over that [would] help throw off the drug test,” and Johnson joked that “his attorney [thought] he [was] a drug addict.” R.706-1, PageID 2730. And the affidavit describes information the affiant received from a confidential informant about Johnson’s involvement in Saultz and Washington’s drug-trafficking activities. If similar facts carried most of the weight for our probable-cause finding in Davidson, they certainly carry our good-faith conclusion today. To be sure, Davidson involved other facts besides—but that was a probable-cause determination, not a good-faith analysis. See id. To fulfill the latter standard, the constellation needn’t shine as bright or comprise as many stars. See United States v. Frazier, 423 F.3d 526, 536 (6th Cir. 2005) (demonstrating good faith “requires a less demanding showing than the substantial basis threshold required to prove the existence of probable cause” (citation modified)). So because the affidavit wasn’t so bare bones as to render unreasonable an officer’s belief in the warrant’s validity, we affirm the district court’s denial of Johnson’s motion to suppress the evidence gathered from his residence at 430A Warren.  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 16 3. Finally, Johnson seeks to suppress the evidence law enforcement discovered in his grandmother Priscilla’s residence at 1214 Smith Road. The district court denied Johnson’s motion on Fourth Amendment standing grounds, but that’s a shaky holding the panel needn’t reach to affirm. So we affirm the district court’s denial of Johnson’s motion to suppress that evidence on the alternative ground that the warrant affidavit establishes probable cause. See United States v. Hayward, 2023 WL 3886407, at *2 (6th Cir. June 8, 2023). The same general probable-cause requirements stated above apply to this search, too. The warrant application must have given the magistrate “a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed” to search 1214 Smith Road. Gates, 462 U.S. at 238 (citation modified). The government’s affidavit fulfilled the nexus requirement. The 1214 Smith affidavit dedicates about three pages to detailing law enforcement’s investigation into the Saultz- Washington’s “[n]exus to 1214 Smith Road.” R.706-2, PageID 2765–67. The affiant declared a few different facts supporting that nexus. First, law enforcement observed Washington “frequently come and go” from 1214 Smith. Id. at PageID 2765. Moreover, a few of those comings and goings directly preceded “what investigators believe[d] to be drug transactions.” Id. In one instance, law enforcement intercepted two phone calls between Washington and an unknown male to set up a meeting. After the two agreed to meet at “the school”—code for a location known by investigators to be a drug house—Washington left his home, arrived at 1214 Smith, carried a “medium sized box” back out to his car, and drove to the drug house to meet with a man whom police believed had been on the other end of the line. Id. at PageID 2766–67. Washington and the caller entered the drug house, where officers believed they conducted a drug transaction. That frequent coming and going by Washington, combined with the affidavit’s copious information about his suspected drug-trafficking activities and an example of a suspected drug transaction implicating 1214 Smith, is enough to establish probable cause. See Sanders, 106 F.4th at 462 (explaining that “circumstantial evidence” can sometimes “do the trick,” where, for  No. 25-3691 United States v. Johnson Page 17 example, officers observe a person leaving a location and possibly engaging in a sale of contraband collected from that location). For that reason, we affirm the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress evidence from 1214 Smith because the magistrate had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed to search that home. B. Next up, Johnson argues that the district court erred by permitting the government to amend Count Two of the indictment during trial, depriving him of his right to indictment by grand jury. Because I believe that he failed to preserve the issue, I consign his argument to plain-error review. And applying that standard, I believe that