Opinion ID: 3049103
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The “reason to believe” standard

Text: [1] An arrest warrant gives government agents limited authority to enter a suspect’s home to arrest him if they have “reason to believe” he is inside. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 603 (1980). The phrase “reason to believe” is interchangeable with and conceptually identical to the phrases “reasonable belief” and “reasonable grounds for believing,” which frequently appear in our cases. See United States v. Gorman, 314 F.3d 1105, 1111 n.4 (9th Cir. 2002) (listing examples of the three phrases’ use and noting their identical meaning). The question of what constitutes an adequate “reason to believe” has given difficulty to many courts, including the district court in the present case.2 The Supreme Court did not elaborate on the meaning of “reason to believe” in Payton and has not done so since then. [2] We have not often discussed the issue of what constitutes a reason to believe a suspect is home, such that officers may enter his home to arrest him. See, e.g., Gorman, 314 F.3d at 1110-15; Case v. Kitsap Cty. Sheriff’s Dept., 249 F.3d 921, 930-31 (9th Cir. 2001); United States v. Litteral, 910 F.2d 547, 553-54 (9th Cir. 1990).3 In Gorman, we held that to 2 During the hearing on Diaz’s motion to suppress, the district court encouraged an appeal because “the standard is uncertain and it would be of great help perhaps to the trial courts if there were some sort of — if there was some further development in this area.” 3 Several “reason to believe” cases discuss whether the police have reason to believe that the home they are entering is actually the suspect’s home, which obviates the need for a search warrant. See, e.g., Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204, 211-17 (1981); Watts v. County of Sacramento, 256 F.3d 886, 889-90 (9th Cir. 2001); United States v. Underwood, 717 F.2d 482, 483-87 (9th Cir. 1983) (en banc). Since Diaz does not argue that police had no reason to believe his home actually was his home, these cases are pertinent to the present case only insofar as they discuss the concept of reasonable belief. 7552 UNITED STATES v. DIAZ decide whether police have reason to believe a suspect is at a particular place, a court must use “the same standard of reasonableness inherent in probable cause.” 314 F.3d at 1112. [3] The Supreme Court described the standard of reasonableness inherent in probable cause in Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175-76 (1949): “Probable cause exists where ‘the facts and circumstances within their (the officers’) knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information (are) sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that’ an offense has been or is being committed.” Id. (quoting Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162 (1925)) (parentheses in original). In this inquiry, common sense is key. In deciding whether there is probable cause to issue a search warrant, a judicial officer must weigh “the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.” Brinegar, 338 U.S. at 175. In a modern take on these core concepts, we have held that probable cause means a “ ‘fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place,’ based on the totality of circumstances.” Dawson v. City of Seattle, 435 F.3d 1054, 1062 (9th Cir. 2006), quoting Illinois v. Gates, 452 U.S. 213, 238 (1983). [4] In Gorman, we held that this standard of reasonableness must apply in the reason-to-believe setting. A common-sense analysis of the “totality of the circumstances” is therefore crucial in deciding whether an officer has a reason to believe a suspect is home. See, e.g., United States v. Magluta, 44 F.3d 1530, 1535 (11th Cir. 1995) (in evaluating reasonable belief, courts must be “sensitive to common sense factors indicating a resident’s presence”).