UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT 

No. 07-5050

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

 v. 

JOHN WILLIAM PICKENS, 

 Defendant – Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern 

District of West Virginia, at Clarksburg. Irene M. Keeley, 

District Judge. (1:07-cr-00032-IMK-1) 

Submitted: September 26, 2008 Decided: October 6, 2008 

Before WILKINSON and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, 

Senior Circuit Judge. 

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

L. Richard Walker, Assistant Federal Public Defender, 

Clarksburg, West Virginia, for Appellant. Sharon L. Potter, 

United States Attorney, Zelda E. Wesley, Assistant United States 

Attorney, Clarksburg, West Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 
2 

PER CURIAM: 

 Following a jury trial, John William Pickens was 

convicted of possession of firearms by a convicted felon, in 

violation of 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2) (West 2000 & 

Supp. 2008). The district court sentenced Pickens to fifty-five 

months in prison. Pickens timely appeals, challenging the 

district court’s denial of his motion to suppress the firearms 

seized during a warrantless search of his home. We affirm. 

 Pickens asserts that the district court erred by 

denying his motion to suppress the rifles seized from his 

trailer, claiming he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in 

his residence and that the district court erroneously concluded 

that he consented to the search. The factual findings 

underlying a motion to suppress are reviewed for clear error, 

while the legal determinations are reviewed de novo. United 

States v. Wilson, 484 F.3d 267, 280 (4th Cir. 2007) (citing 

Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996)). When the 

district court denies a suppression motion, this court reviews 

the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government. 

United States v. Uzenski, 434 F.3d 690, 704 (4th Cir. 2006). 

 The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches; 

a warrantless search is per se unreasonable unless it falls 

within a valid exception to the warrant requirement. 

Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 219 (1973). Voluntary 
3 

consent to a search is such an exception. Ferguson v. City of 

Charleston, 308 F.3d 380, 396 (4th Cir. 2002). 

 In addition, individuals under supervision have 

diminished rights under the Fourth Amendment. United States v. 

Reyes, 283 F.3d 446, 458 (2d Cir. 2002). For example, a 

probation officer’s warrantless visit to the home of a convicted 

person serving a term of supervised release does not violate the 

Fourth Amendment, even absent consent. Griffin v. Wisconsin, 

483 U.S. 868, 878 (1987). 

 The Supreme Court addressed the diminished rights 

accorded individuals under court supervision in United States v. 

Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 120-21 (2001). In Knights, a police 

officer conducted a warrantless search of a defendant he knew 

was on probation. The defendant had agreed to warrantless 

searches of his home by probation officers as a condition of his 

release. Without deciding whether such prior consent 

constituted a complete waiver of the defendant’s Fourth 

Amendment rights, id. at 118, the Supreme Court found that the 

search was valid because the defendant had a diminished right to 

privacy based on his status as a probationer and the officers 

had reasonable suspicion that Knights was engaging in criminal 

activity. Id. at 120-21. 

 The Supreme Court visited the issue of a parolee’s 

Fourth Amendment rights in Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843 
4 

(2006), examining “whether a condition of release can so 

diminish or eliminate a released prisoner’s reasonable 

expectation of privacy that a suspicionless search by a law 

enforcement officer would not offend the Fourth Amendment.” Id.

at 847. In upholding the suspicionless search of a parolee on a 

public street, the Court noted that parole was “an established 

variation on imprisonment,” id. at 852, and that “parolees have 

fewer expectations of privacy than probationers, because parole 

is more akin to imprisonment than probation is to imprisonment.” 

Id. at 850. The Court examined the totality of the 

circumstances, balancing the degree to which the search intruded 

upon the parolee’s diminished expectation of privacy against the 

Government’s “overwhelming interest” in supervising parolees to 

prevent recidivism and promote reintegration into society. Id.

at 848-54. The Court noted that the parolee was aware of the 

California law conditioning release on the parolee’s consent to 

warrantless searches as indicated by his signature on an order 

submitting to the condition. Id. at 852. Under the totality of 

the circumstances, the Court held that a suspicionless, 

warrantless search of the parolee did not violate the Fourth 

Amendment. Id. at 857. 

 With these principles in mind, we find that the 

warrantless search of Pickens’ trailer did not violate the 

Fourth Amendment. Like the parolee in Sampson, Pickens had 
5 

signed a parole agreement acknowledging he would comply with all 

rules and regulations prescribed by the Commissioner of the West 

Virginia Division of Corrections. Pickens signed a copy of the 

rules and regulations which included the provisions requiring 

him to permit his parole officer to visit his residence without 

obstruction and to submit to a warrantless search of his person 

and home for supervision purposes at any time. Under the 

totality of the circumstances, considering Pickens’ undisputed 

awareness of the parole rules and regulations requiring him to 

submit to a warrantless search and his agreement to abide by 

these provisions as a condition of parole, and balancing 

Pickens’ diminished expectation of privacy by virtue of his 

status as a parolee against the State’s legitimate interest in 

supervising parolees, we conclude that the warrantless search of 

Pickens’ home did not violate the Fourth Amendment. 

 For these reasons, we affirm Pickens’ conviction. We 

dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process. 

AFFIRMED