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Parties Involved:
Dustin Caya
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 19-2469

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

DUSTIN CAYA,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 18-cr-108-wmc — William M. Conley, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 2, 2019 — DECIDED APRIL 16, 2020

____________________

Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Circuit Judge. Dustin Caya was indicted on drugtrafficking and firearms charges based on evidence found in

his home during a search conducted on the authority of 

section 302.113(7r) of the Wisconsin Statutes. The statute

authorizes law-enforcement officers to search the person, 

home, or property of a criminal offender serving a term of

“extended supervision”—the period of community superviCase: 19-2469 Document: 20 Filed: 04/16/2020 Pages: 10
2 No. 19-2469

sion that follows a prison term—based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or a violation of supervision.

Caya moved to suppress the evidence recovered from his 

home, arguing that the search was unlawful under the 

Fourth Amendment. The district judge denied the motion. 

Caya pleaded guilty, reserving his right to challenge the 

suppression ruling on appeal.

We affirm the judgment. Fourth Amendment law has 

long recognized that criminal offenders on community 

supervision have significantly diminished expectations of 

privacy. More specifically, the privacy expectations of 

offenders on postimprisonment supervision are weak and 

substantially outweighed by the government’s strong interest in preventing recidivism and safely reintegrating offenders into society. Indeed, the Supreme Court has held that a 

law-enforcement officer may search a person on parole

without any suspicion of criminal activity. Samson v. 

California, 547 U.S. 843, 847 (2006). In Wisconsin extended 

supervision is essentially judge-imposed parole. It follows

that a search under section 302.113(7r), which requires

reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or a violation of 

supervision, is constitutionally permissible.

I. Background

On June 1, 2018, police officers in Prairie du Chien, 

Wisconsin, were summoned to a local business to check on a 

woman who was passed out in her parked car. Arriving at 

about 1:15 p.m., the officers identified the woman as Melissa 

Thomas and called for paramedics to transport her to the 

hospital. While they were waiting for the ambulance, the 

officers found a methamphetamine pipe in the car and 

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No. 19-2469 3

suspected an overdose. They also noticed a child’s car seat in 

the vehicle.

At the hospital Thomas was initially too incapacitated to 

respond to the officers’ questions, so they returned later that 

afternoon after she was medically stabilized and more 

responsive. She told them that she had used methamphetamine in her car that day. When asked where she got the 

meth, she said that she and Dustin, her live-in boyfriend, 

obtained it together and shared it “as a family,” but she was 

unsure of the original source. She told the officers that she 

kept her meth pipes at home. They asked about the car seat. 

She said she had two children, a one-year-old and a 

fourteen-year-old. She was initially confused about where 

they were and who was caring for them. She later said that 

the children were at home and Dustin was supposed to be 

looking after them. She gave the officers her home address,

and they called in a request for a welfare check on the children.

Sergeant Todd Miller and Deputy Matthew Small of the 

Grant County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to Thomas’s 

home. Caya answered the door. He was sweating profusely, 

speaking rapidly, and his pupils were constricted, suggesting that he was under the influence of drugs. Sergeant Miller 

was familiar with Caya from previous contacts with him. 

The sergeant also knew that Caya was on extended supervision for a felony conviction and therefore subject to 

section 302.113(7r). The statute, enacted in 2013 and colloquially referred to as Act 79, authorizes law-enforcement

officers to search the person, home, or property of an offender released to extended supervision following a term of 

imprisonment if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the 

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offender is involved in criminal activity or is violating a

condition of his supervision.

The officers asked Caya about Thomas. He said she was 

not home. He assured the officers that he and Thomas were 

clean and that Thomas’s children were with their grandmother in Dubuque. Based on their observations and the 

information they had from Thomas, the officers initiated a 

search under the statute. They handcuffed Caya and did an 

initial sweep of the home, locating Thomas’s one-year-old 

child in the living room and methamphetamine and loaded 

rifles in a bedroom. In a second, more thorough search, the 

officers recovered various items of drug paraphernalia, cash, 

several loaded rifles and handguns, and more than 

350 grams of meth.

A federal grand jury indicted Caya for possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute, possessing a firearm 

in furtherance of that crime, and possessing a firearm as a 

felon. He moved to suppress the evidence recovered from 

his home. He argued that warrantless searches under Act 79 

are unreasonable in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and

alternatively, that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion as 

required by the statute. The judge rejected these arguments 

and denied the motion. Caya later entered guilty pleas to the 

methamphetamine count and the charge of possessing a 

firearm as a felon; the remaining count was dismissed. The 

judge imposed concurrent terms of 78 months in prison.

II. Discussion

Caya’s plea agreement reserved his right to appeal the

judge’s suppression ruling. He no longer disputes the reasonable suspicion for the search. He focuses instead on his 

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No. 19-2469 5

more general challenge to Act 79 searches, arguing that the 

Fourth Amendment prohibits law-enforcement searches of 

persons on extended supervision based on mere reasonable 

suspicion of criminal activity.

This argument requires a bit of background on the relevant aspects of state sentencing law. Effective December 31, 

1999, Wisconsin eliminated its old system of indeterminate 

sentencing, which gave the executive branch the discretion 

to release a prisoner to parole supervision prior to the 

expiration of his judicially imposed sentence. In its place the 

legislature installed a system of determinate sentencing that

requires judges to impose bifurcated sentences with confinement and community-supervision components. WIS.

STATS. § 973.01(1) (requiring bifurcated sentences); id.

§ 973.01(6) (abolishing parole). More specifically, a bifurcated sentence “consists of a term of confinement in prison 

followed by a term of extended supervision under 

s. 302.113,” and “[t]he total length of a bifurcated sentence

equals the length of the term of confinement in prison plus 

the length of the term of extended supervision.” Id.

§ 973.01(2). Both the sentencing judge and the Department of 

Corrections may set the conditions of extended supervision. 

Id. § 973.01(5); id. § 302.113(7). An offender who violates a 

condition of extended supervision may be returned to prison 

for a period not to exceed the term of extended supervision

minus any time served on earlier revocations of extended 

supervision. Id. § 302.113(9)(am).

Thirteen years later the legislature adopted 2013 Wisconsin Act 79, the provision at issue here. It provides, in relevant part:

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A person released [to extended supervision] 

under this section, his or her residence, and 

any property under his or her control may be 

searched by a law enforcement officer at any 

time during his or her period of supervision if 

the officer reasonably suspects that the person 

is committing, is about to commit, or has 

committed a crime or a violation of a condition 

of release to extended supervision.

Id. § 301.113(7r). The search of Caya’s home was conducted 

under the authority conferred by this statute. He argues that 

the search was unlawful under principles extrapolated from 

a trilogy of Supreme Court cases addressing searches of 

offenders on community supervision.

First, in Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868 (1987), the Court 

upheld as reasonable a probation officer’s warrantless search 

of a Wisconsin probationer’s home under a regulation

permitting the officer to conduct a search on reasonable 

suspicion that the probationer possessed contraband. Id. at 

870–71. The Court began by observing that “[a] probationer’s 

home, like anyone else’s, is protected by the Fourth 

Amendment’s requirement that searches be reasonable,” 

which normally requires a warrant based on probable cause.

Id. at 873 (quotation marks omitted). The Court determined, 

however, that the warrantless probation search was lawful

under the special-needs exception, which applies when

“special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement 

impracticable.” Id. (quoting New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 

351 (1985) (Blackmun, J. concurring)). The Court reasoned 

that adhering to the warrant requirement would interfere 

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with the probation system’s substantial need to closely 

supervise and control the conduct of probationers in order to 

protect the community and promote genuine rehabilitation. 

Id. at 874–75.

Next, in United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112 (2001), the 

Court again upheld a warrantless search of a probationer’s 

home, only this time by a law-enforcement officer. Because

the search was conducted as part of a law-enforcement 

investigation rather than for probationary purposes, the 

special-needs doctrine did not apply. Id. at 118–19. The 

government urged the Court to uphold the search on a 

consent-based rationale, noting that the defendant had 

signed a court document acknowledging the conditions of 

his probation, including a condition subjecting him to warrantless law-enforcement searches. Id. at 118.

The Court declined that invitation and instead assessed

the reasonableness of the search under its more general 

“totality of the circumstances” analysis, weighing the degree 

of intrusion on individual expectations of privacy against the 

degree to which the search “is needed for the promotion of 

legitimate governmental interests.” Id. at 118–19 (quotation 

marks omitted). The Court opened with an observation that 

“probationers do not enjoy the absolute liberty to which 

every citizen is entitled.” Id. at 119 (quotation marks omitted). The search condition, the Court explained, was clearly 

reasonable given the probationary goals of rehabilitation and 

community protection, and the probationer was unquestionably aware of it. Id. The Court had no trouble concluding 

that a probationer has a “significantly diminished” expectation of privacy. Id. at 119–20.

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On the other side of the scale, the Court determined that

the government’s interests in this context are very strong: 

recidivism rates are high and probationers have a heightened incentive to conceal their criminal activity and destroy

incriminating evidence in order to avoid revocation and 

imprisonment in truncated proceedings that do not carry the 

right to a jury trial and other procedural protections. Id. at 

120. The public-safety concerns tipped the balance: the 

governmental interests outweighed the weak individual 

expectations of privacy. Id. at 121. The Court held that a lawenforcement officer may conduct a warrantless search of a 

probationer or his home or property if the search is “supported by reasonable suspicion and authorized by a condition of probation.” Id. at 122.

Finally, in Samson v. California, the Supreme Court upheld a suspicionless law-enforcement search of a parolee. 

The search was conducted under a state law authorizing 

parole and law-enforcement officers to search parolees “with 

or without a search warrant and with or without cause.”

547 U.S. at 846 (quotation marks omitted). While the analysis 

was quite similar to Knights, Samson went further. The Court 

reasoned that because parole is even closer to imprisonment 

than probation on the “continuum” of punishments, a 

parolee has a lower expectation of privacy than a probationer. Id. at 850. The Court also determined that the government

has an “overwhelming interest” in tight supervision of

parolees to reduce recidivism and promote reintegration into 

law-abiding society. Id. at 853–55. Considering the weakness 

of a parolee’s privacy interests and the strength of the 

public-safety interests, the Court concluded that a statutorily 

authorized, suspicionless law-enforcement search of a 

parolee is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

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Samson controls this case. Formally and practically, 

Wisconsin’s extended-supervision system is parole by 

another name. Extended supervision is judicially imposed 

parole supervision—the second part of the bifurcated sentence imposed by the court. § 973.01(2). Just as parole is 

ultimately limited by the length of the prison term imposed 

by the court, the length of extended supervision is limited by 

the total length of the bifurcated sentence imposed by the 

judge. § 973.01(2)(a).

Because extended supervision in Wisconsin is judicially 

imposed parole, an offender on extended supervision has no

greater expectation of privacy than a parolee. And 

Wisconsin’s interest in rigorously monitoring offenders on 

extended supervision is just as compelling as the government’s parole-supervision interests in Samson. If, as Samson 

holds, a no-suspicion search of a parolee is constitutionally 

permissible, so too an Act 79 search—predicated on reasonable suspicion—is constitutionally permissible.

Caya resists this conclusion, arguing that extended supervision is more like probation than parole. Not so, as 

we’ve explained. He also insists that Knights and Samson—

the cases involving law-enforcement searches—were narrow, fact-bound decisions that entailed a particularized 

inquiry into whether the defendant had notice that he was 

subject to a warrantless search as a condition of his supervision. But neither decision rested on a consent rationale, 

either express or implied; indeed, Samson and Knights were

crystal clear that consent was not a decisive consideration. 

Samson, 547 U.S. at 852 n.3 (“[W]e decline to rest our holding 

today on the consent rationale.”); Knights, 534 U.S. at 118 

(“We need not decide whether Knights’ acceptance of the 

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search condition constituted consent ... because we conclude 

that the search of Knights was reasonable under our general 

Fourth Amendment approach ... .”).

Last, Caya urges us to adopt the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning in United States v. Hill, 776 F.3d 243 (4th Cir. 2015). There, 

the court held that a warrantless search of the home of three 

offenders on federal supervised release was unlawful. No 

release condition, regulation, or statute subjected the offenders to warrantless law-enforcement searches. Id. at 249. 

Instead, their release conditions subjected them only to visits 

by a probation officer and to confiscation of contraband in 

plain view. The Fourth Circuit suggested that the absence of 

prior authorization made Griffin, Knights, and Samson inapplicable. Id. As we’ve just explained, there is reason to doubt 

that understanding of the Court’s decisions. But whatever 

the merits of the distinction drawn in Hill, Caya is on the 

wrong side of it. He concedes that section 302.113(7r) authorized the search of his home. The Fourth Circuit’s decision

does not help him.

The Act 79 search of Caya’s home was not unconstitutional. The judge properly denied the suppression motion.

AFFIRMED

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