Opinion ID: 1587472
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Stalking Horse.

Text: Appellant's stalking horse defense is premised upon his assertion that Operation Night Vision was a subterfuge to enable other police agencies to conduct unconstitutional searches of parolees' residences under the guise of a parole officer's routine visit. Prior to the decision in Knights, supra , a majority of federal courts had, indeed, held that a search was unlawful when the probation or parole officer was acting as a stalking horse for a police investigation, i.e., when the officer's visit was but a ruse for an entry and search by the accompanying police officers. See United States v. Martin, 25 F.3d 293, 296 (6th Cir.1994) ([I]t is impermissible for a probation search to serve as subterfuge for a criminal investigation.); United States v. Grimes, 225 F.3d 254, 259 (2nd Cir.2000); United States v. McFarland, 116 F.3d 316, 318 (8th Cir.1997); United States v. Ooley, 116 F.3d 370, 372 (9th Cir.1997); United States v. McCarty, 82 F.3d 943, 947 (10th Cir.1996); United States v. Coleman, 22 F.3d 126, 129 (7th Cir.1994); Shea v. Smith, 966 F.2d 127, 132 (3rd Cir.1992). However, in the process of reversing the suppression of evidence seized in a probation search that was for investigatory, as opposed to probationary, purposes, Knights eliminated the stalking horse defense. Because our holding rests on ordinary Fourth Amendment analysis that considers all the circumstances of a search, there is no basis for examining official purpose. With the limited exception of some special needs and administrative search cases, we have been unwilling to entertain Fourth Amendment challenges based on the actual motivations of individual officers. Knights, supra, at 122, 122 S.Ct. at 593 (citations and quotations omitted). The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has subsequently held in United States v. Stokes, 292 F.3d 964 (9th Cir.2002), that, in light of Knights , our circuit's line of cases holding searches of probationers invalid on the ground that they were subterfuges for criminal investigations is, in that respect, no longer good law. Id. at 967 ( overruling Ooley, supra ). We agree that Knights eliminated the so-called stalking horse defense. Thus, we need not engage in a subjective examination of the official purpose behind this particular Operation Night Vision visit. We simply hold that the search of the remainder of Appellant's mobile home did not violate his constitutional right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.