Opinion ID: 781330
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Crawford's Privacy Interest in His Own Home

Text: 20 An individual's capacity to claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment depends ... upon whether the person who claims the protection of the Amendment has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place. Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 88, 119 S.Ct. 469, 142 L.Ed.2d 373 (1988) (quoting Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978)); United States v. Singleton, 987 F.2d 1444, 1449 (9th Cir.1993); see also United States v. Sarkisian, 197 F.3d 966, 986 (9th Cir.1999) (affirming that a defendant has standing to contest a Fourth Amendment violation if he manifests a subjective expectation of privacy in the area searched and the expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as objectively reasonable). 11 In other words, an individual must have a sufficient connection to the invaded place to assert the protection of the [F]ourth [A]mendment. United States v. Davis, 932 F.2d 752, 757 (9th Cir.1991); see also Carter, 525 U.S. at 99, 119 S.Ct. 469 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (Fourth Amendment rights are personal, and when a person objects to the search of a place and invokes the exclusionary rule, he or she must have the requisite connection to that place.). 21 If an individual cannot demonstrate a connection to the invaded place sufficient to invoke the Fourth Amendment, 12 we need proceed no further. See, e.g., Carter, 525 U.S. at 91, 119 S.Ct. 469. Otherwise, we must determine the extent of the individual's reasonable expectation of privacy to decide whether the government's interference with his privacy rights was reasonable. 22 In this case, the district court concluded that Crawford had an objectively reasonable subjective expectation of privacy in his home. 13 We agree. 23 Crawford's personal connection to his home is more than sufficient to afford him Fourth Amendment protection against an uninvited search. Indeed, Crawford's reasonable expectation of privacy must be strongest in his own home. The home is the prototypical ... area of protected privacy. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001); cf. Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990) (holding that even an overnight guest has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the premises). The Supreme Court has unambiguously insisted that an individual's privacy interest in his home must be protected: 24 The Fourth Amendment protects the individual's privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home — a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional terms: `The right of the people to be secure in their ... houses ... shall not be violated.' That language unequivocally establishes the proposition that `[a]t the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.' 25 Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589-90, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961)). See also Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 44, 121 S.Ct. 2038 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (To be sure, the homeowner has a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning what takes place within the home....); United States v. Johnson, 457 U.S. 537, 552 n. 13, 102 S.Ct. 2579, 73 L.Ed.2d 202 (1982) (At least since Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746[] (1886), the Court ha[s] acknowledged that the Fourth Amendment accords special protection to the home.); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 562, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976) ([T]he sanctity of private dwellings [is] ordinarily afforded the most stringent Fourth Amendment protection.); L.A. Police Protective League v. Gates, 907 F.2d 879, 884 (9th Cir.1990) (Nowhere is the protective force of the fourth amendment more powerful than it is when the sanctity of the home is involved.... The sanctity of a person's home, perhaps our last real retreat in this technological age, lies at the very core of the rights which animate the amendment.). If an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy anywhere, he must surely reasonably expect privacy in his own home. 26 The dissent, placing great weight on recent decisions of the California Supreme Court, claims that Crawford's status as a parolee deprives him of any reasonable expectation of privacy anywhere, even in his own bedroom. As the district court properly noted, however, federal law — not California law — governs the extent of the protection that the Fourth Amendment provides. 14 See Ooley, 116 F.3d at 372; Davis, 932 F.2d at 758. Accordingly, we must look to federal law to determine the expectation of privacy that Crawford reasonably possesses; once this threshold is established, a state may not define away the constitutional protection. 27 Under federal law, Crawford's expectation of privacy in his own home is not wholly defeated by virtue of his parole status. As the Supreme Court has recognized, A probationer's home, like anyone else's, is protected by the Fourth Amendment's requirement that searches be `reasonable.' Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987). 15 To find otherwise would be to equate a parolee's home with a prisoner's cell — a comparison that the Supreme Court has unequivocally rejected. Compare Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 525-26, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984) (finding that the Fourth Amendment does not apply within the confines of a prison cell); with Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972) (Though the State properly subjects [a parolee] to many restrictions not applicable to other citizens, his condition is very different from that of confinement in a prison.). As we stated en banc over a generation ago: 28 Moreover, the theory upon which courts have usually relied to justify stripping parolees of Fourth Amendment protection has been widely criticized. Commentators have repeatedly criticized the notion that the status of parolees is legally comparable to that of prisoners in actual custody as being logically inconsistent and ignoring reality.... [T]he Supreme Court has specifically rejected the theory that parole officers have unfettered discretion in dealing with parolees, and refused to attach so broad a significance to the custody theory. 29 It is thus too late in the day to assert that searches of parolees by their parole officers present no Fourth Amendment issues. Rather, such searches may be held illegal and the evidence obtained therefrom suppressed unless they pass muster under the Fourth Amendment test of reasonableness. 30 Latta v. Fitzharris, 521 F.2d 246, 248-49 (9th Cir.1975) (en banc) (citations omitted). 16 See also Sepulveda v. Ramirez, 967 F.2d 1413, 1416 (9th Cir.1992) ([T]he constitutional rights of parolees are even more extensive than those of inmates.). 17 31 It is true that Crawford's parole status reduces the expectation of privacy ... that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. Bond v. United States, 529 U.S. 334, 338, 120 S.Ct. 1462, 146 L.Ed.2d 365 (2000) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). However, a reduced expectation of privacy is substantially different from an extinguished expectation of privacy. Although parolees are subject to specific constraints on their privacy that would not be constitutional if applied to the public at large, Griffin, 483 U.S. at 875, 107 S.Ct. 3164, their privacy interests are not eliminated entirely. Indeed, the purposes of parole require a reasonable amount of privacy. Parole represents an interim state between custody and freedom, critical to successful reintegration of the offender into society and to positive citizenship. CAL. PENAL CODE § 3000. It would be unreasonable to expect a parolee to negotiate the transition into the life of a normal citizen without some measure of the privacy that normal citizens take for granted. 32 The Supreme Court's most recent discussion of parole searches confirms that a parolee has an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his home. In United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 122 S.Ct. 587, 151 L.Ed.2d 497 (2001), the Supreme Court confronted a search of the home of a probationer subject to a probation search condition. In examining the totality of the circumstances, the Court found the probationer's privacy interest to be significantly diminished — but not extinguished. Knights, 534 U.S. at 118-19, 122 S.Ct. 587. Similarly, we find in this case that Crawford had a diminished but still objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his home. 33