Opinion ID: 780332
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reason to Believe Standard

Text: 32 Gorman contends that his case should be distinguished from Underwood, and his suppression motion should be granted because the District Court found that there was no probable cause to believe that Gorman was either residing at Helen's home or was present at the time the officers entered. In response, the government asserts that  Underwood does not require probable cause; it held that the officers need only have a `reason to believe the person named in the warrant is present.' At oral argument before us and before the District Court, the government maintained that the reason to believe, or reasonable belief, standard is akin to reasonable suspicion. While the government correctly states that the reason to believe standard of Underwood applies, the government incorrectly argues that Underwood does not require probable cause or an equal standard of reasonableness. 33 Citing Underwood, we recently stated that [t]here can be little doubt that police can enter a dwelling for the purpose of executing an arrest warrant. That, however, does not mean that officers armed with a warrant can enter a private home at any time or for any reason. Quite the contrary. United States v. Albrektsen, 151 F.3d 951, 953 (9th Cir.1998) (citations omitted). An arrest warrant forms only the necessary rather than sufficient basis for entry into a home. Id. In addition to an arrest warrant, there must be reason to believe the suspect is within the residence. Payton, 445 U.S. at 603, 100 S.Ct. 1371. 34 In Underwood this court en banc addressed the issue of a non-consensual search of a third-party residence with only an arrest warrant for the defendant — the same issue now before us. We relied upon Payton in holding that an arrest warrant [for the suspect] plus reason to believe the suspect is present are sufficient to permit entry [into a third-party residence] without a search warrant, and reasoned that: 35 [f]or the purpose of determining whether Underwood's rights were violated, nothing turns on [whether he was in his own home or the home of a third person]. A person has no greater right of privacy in another's home than in his own. If an arrest warrant and reason to believe the person named in the warrant is present are sufficient to protect that person's Fourth Amendment privacy rights in his own home, they necessarily suffice to protect his privacy rights in the home of another. United States v. Clifford, 664 F.2d 1090, 1093 (8th Cir. 1981). 36 Underwood, 717 F.2d at 484. Thus, Gorman's suppression motion can be granted only if the officers did not have reason to believe that Gorman was present in Helen's home. 37 Clearly, it is the reason to believe standard as espoused by the Supreme Court in Payton and by this Court in Underwood that applies to the case before us. But the reason to believe standard is far from clear. 5 The Supreme Court did not define the reason to believe standard in Payton 6 nor has it defined the standard subsequently. We did not define the reason to believe standard in Underwood nor have we explicitly defined the standard subsequently. We now conclude that the reason to believe standard of Payton and Underwood embodies the same standard of reasonableness inherent in probable cause. 38 In Underwood, the majority states that the District Court held that the officers had probable cause to believe Underwood was in the house when they entered; however, the majority does not define the reason to believe standard of Payton. Underwood, 717 F.2d at 483. The dissent primarily takes issue with what it finds to be an unwarranted extension of Payton v. New York  and an erroneous reading of the Supreme's Court more recent decision in Steagald . Id. at 486, 487 (citations omitted). 7 39 The Underwood dissent warns of the possible misinterpretations of Payton's reason to believe standard: [T]he majority rule permits searches of any home based only on `a reason to believe' the subject of an arrest warrant is present. The justification for the search may thus be made in the field on less than probable cause. Id. at 490 (emphasis added). Such an interpretation of reason to believe as less than probable cause, the dissent states is expressly rejected by the Supreme Court in Steagald: 40 A contrary conclusion—that the police, acting alone and in the absence of exigent circumstances, may decide when there is sufficient justification for searching the home of a third party for the subject of an arrest warrant—would create a significant potential for abuse. Armed solely with an arrest warrant for a single person, the police could search all the homes of that individual's friends and acquaintances .... Moreover, an arrest warrant may serve as the pretext for entering a home in which the police have a suspicion, but not probable cause to believe, that illegal activity is taking place. 41 Id. at 491 (quoting Steagald, 451 U.S. 204, 215, 101 S.Ct. 1642, 68 L.Ed.2d 38 (1981)). The majority, however, does not address the question whether reason to believe is different from or similar to probable cause. 42 In attempting to determine the standard for reasonable belief, the Fifth Circuit stated that: 43 [p]robable cause is essentially a concept of reasonableness, but it has become a term of art in that it must always be determined by a magistrate unless exigent circumstances excuse a search warrant. When one says probable cause, therefore, one also says either magistrate or exigent circumstances. Reasonable belief embodies the same standards of reasonableness but allows the officer, who has already been to the magistrate to secure an arrest warrant, to determine that the suspect is probably within certain premises without an additional trip to the magistrate and without exigent circumstances. 44 United States v. Cravero, 545 F.2d 406, 421 (5th Cir.1977) (emphasis added). 45 Further illustrating the similarity between probable cause and the reason to believe standard, three years after Cravero, the Fifth Circuit [f]or want of a better verbal formulation ... drew upon the jurisprudence of `probable cause.' Vasquez v. Snow, 616 F.2d 217, 220 (5th Cir.1980). Using the probable cause analogy, the Fifth Circuit found an arrest warrant permits pursuit into the premises ... only if the investigating officers' knowledge and trustworthy information would cause a man of reasonable caution to believe that the suspect `is in (that) particular building.' Id. (quoting United States v. Phillips, 497 F.2d 1131, 1136 (9th Cir.1974)). 8 46 Our own case law supports equating the reason to believe standard of Payton and Underwood to the standard of reasonableness embedded in probable cause, not reasonable suspicion. In Watts v. County of Sacramento, 256 F.3d 886 (9th Cir. 2001), we found that [c]ourts have generally required substantial evidence ... to create a reasonable belief. Id. at 890. In United States v. Phillips, 497 F.2d 1131 (9th Cir.1974), we ruled that an agent must have probable cause to believe that the person he is attempting to arrest, with or without a warrant, is in a particular building before he could enter the building by ruse or any other means. Id. at 1136. Three years after Underwood was decided, we found that [e]ntry into a person's home is so intrusive that such searches always require probable cause regardless of whether some exception would excuse the warrant requirement. United States v. Howard, 828 F.2d 552, 555 (9th Cir.1987) (citing Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987), and United States v. Winsor, 816 F.2d 1394, 1399 (9th Cir.1987), rev'd en banc, 846 F.2d 1569, 1574 (9th Cir.1988)). 47 Since Underwood, our cases have come to equate the reasonableness inherent in reason to believe with the reasonableness inherent in probable cause. In United States v. Harper, 928 F.2d 894 (9th Cir.1991), for example, we explicitly used the probable cause standard to find that the entry and search of David and Adrian Harper's residence pursuant to an arrest warrant for David was legal: Once the police `possess[ed] an arrest warrant and probable cause to believe [David] was in his home, the officers were entitled to search anywhere in the house in which [he] might be found.' Id. at 897 (quoting Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 332-33, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990)). 48 The Tenth Circuit, however, criticizes Harper and contends that we provided no rationale for adopting the probable cause standard, except for merely citing [our] prior decision in Perez v. Sim[m]ons [900 F.2d 213 (9th Cir.1990)]. Valdez v. McPheters, 172 F.3d 1220, 1224-25 (10th Cir.1999) (citation omitted). The Tenth Circuit notes that Perez used reasonable grounds for believing as the appropriate standard, not probable cause. 9 Valdez, 172 F.3d at 1225 n. 1. The phrase reasonable grounds to believe, however, is often synonymous with probable cause. In Payton, Justice White states that the officer entering to arrest must have reasonable grounds to believe, not only that the arrestee has committed a crime, but also that the person suspected is present in the house at the time of the entry. Payton, 445 U.S. at 616, 100 S.Ct. 1371 (White, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). Under a footnote to that statement, Justice White then discusses the quantum of probable cause necessary to make a valid home arrest — clearly equating reasonable grounds to believe with probable cause. Id. at 616 n. 13, 100 S.Ct. 1371 (emphasis added). 10 49 United States v. Clifford, the Eighth Circuit case whose reasoning we followed in Underwood, also supports using the reasonableness standard embedded in probable cause for the reason to believe standard. In Clifford, as in Underwood and as in the case before us, the subject of the arrest warrant asserted that the non-consensual entry into the home of a third-party without exigent circumstances or a search warrant was unconstitutional. Clifford, 664 F.2d at 1092. Clifford held that  Payton authorizes entry on the basis of the existing arrest warrant for the defendant and probable cause to believe that the defendant was within the premises. Id. at 1093 (emphasis added). 50 Nothing in Underwood or Payton precludes us from using the same standard of reasonableness embedded in probable cause as the standard of reasonableness for the reason to believe standard. Rather, Underwood, Payton, and our subsequent cases suggest that the standard of probable cause, and not of reasonable suspicion, is the standard already being applied in this Circuit. Thus, like the Fifth Circuit, we too dr[a]w upon the jurisprudence of `probable cause.' We therefore find that the reason to believe, or reasonable belief, standard of Payton and Underwood should be read to entail the same protection and reasonableness inherent in probable cause. 51