Opinion ID: 781330
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Parole Search

Text: 17 The Fourth Amendment provides that [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. U.S. CONST. amend. IV. We review for clear error the district court's underlying factual findings in a Fourth Amendment challenge, and we review de novo the lawfulness of a search or seizure. See United States v. Dorais, 241 F.3d 1124, 1128 (9th Cir.2001); United States v. Hudson, 100 F.3d 1409, 1414 (9th Cir.1996). 18 A search does not infringe the Fourth Amendment if it is reasonable, which we measure[] in objective terms by examining the totality of the circumstances. Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33, 39, 117 S.Ct. 417, 136 L.Ed.2d 347 (1996). See also id. (We have long held that the `touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.') (quoting Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 114 L.Ed.2d 297 (1991)). Following the Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 122 S.Ct. 587, 151 L.Ed.2d 497 (2001), in order to determine if a parole search is objectively reasonable, we are required to balance the privacy interests of a parolee against the government's interest in the search. 10 Knights, 534 U.S. at 118, 122 S.Ct. 587. 19
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
34 In Knights, to determine if the probation search was reasonable, the Court weighed the probationer's diminished privacy interest against the government's interest in preventing and punishing crimes committed by probationers lapsing into recidivism. Id. at 119, 122 S.Ct. 587. The Court emphasized that reasonableness was to be determined by examining the totality of the circumstances, with the probation search condition being a salient circumstance. 18 Id. at 118, 122 S.Ct. 587. 35 Normally, of course, the search of a home is only reasonable for Fourth Amendment purposes if it is conducted pursuant to a warrant grounded in probable cause. See, e.g., Payton, 445 U.S. at 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371; cf. Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U.S. 326, 330, 121 S.Ct. 946, 148 L.Ed.2d 838 (2001) (noting the same for seizures). Under the circumstances of a parole search pursuant to a Fourth Waiver condition, however, the Knights Court found that a search could be reasonable without strict adherence to the ordinary probable cause requirements. 19 See Knights, 534 U.S. at 119-21, 122 S.Ct. 587. Instead, some lesser amount of individualized suspicion suffices because the balance of governmental and private interests makes such a standard reasonable. Id. at 119, 122 S.Ct. 587. The Court noted that [t]he degree of individualized suspicion required of a search is a determination of when there is a sufficiently high probability that criminal conduct is occurring to make the intrusion on the individual's privacy interest reasonable. Id. (citing United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981)) (emphasis added). After acknowledging that both parties in the case before it had conceded the presence of reasonable suspicion, the Court found that reasonable suspicion provided a sufficiently high probability of criminal conduct to render the overall balance reasonable and the search valid. 36 Knights explicitly refused to consider whether, in the case of probationers, the constitutional requirement of reasonableness could be satisfied without individualized suspicion. See id. at 119 n. 6, 122 S.Ct. 587; see also Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 362 n. 3, 118 S.Ct. 2014, 141 L.Ed.2d 344 (1998) (reserving the same question in the case of parolees). However, it is implicit in the Court's statements in Knights and Griffin that probation and parole searches are limited by some reasonable and legally protectable privacy interest. See Knights, 534 U.S. at 119, 122 S.Ct. 587 (When an officer has reasonable suspicion that a probationer subject to a search condition is engaged in criminal activity, there is enough likelihood that criminal conduct is occurring that an intrusion on the probationer's significantly diminished privacy interests is reasonable.) (emphasis added); Griffin, 483 U.S. at 875, 107 S.Ct. 3164 (Supervision [of parolees] is a `special need' of the State permitting a degree of impingement upon privacy that would not be constitutional if applied to the public at large. That permissible degree is not unlimited, however ....) (emphasis added). By mandating that we balance the government's interests against the privacy interests of a probationer or parolee, and by declaring the individual's privacy interests to be diminished but not extinguished, see supra section II.A.1, the Supreme Court has made it clear that in the case of searches pursuant to parole conditions, the ordinary search requirements are to be relaxed but not eliminated. 37 Moreover, the fact that a parole search invades the home must weigh heavily in the totality of the circumstances that determines whether such a search is reasonable. See Knights, 534 U.S. at 118, 122 S.Ct. 587; see also Carter, 525 U.S. at 88, 119 S.Ct. 469 ([T]he extent to which the Fourth Amendment protects people may depend upon where those people are.). 20 As noted above, supra section II.A.1, the Supreme Court considers the home sacrosanct, and permits government searches of the home only pursuant to enhanced procedural safeguards. Neither the Supreme Court nor this court has ever approved a suspicionless search of a home for a law enforcement purpose. To do so here would represent a substantial incursion into previously inviolate constitutional territory. 38 The Supreme Court's special needs jurisprudence, cited with such enthusiasm by the dissent, does not support a different conclusion. The dissent correctly characterizes parole as a special need of the state, but incorrectly concludes that upon invocation of that phrase, Fourth Amendment protections vanish. Griffin itself stated otherwise. The Court found that special needs associated with the probation and parole system may justify departures from the usual warrant and probable-cause requirements, Griffin, 483 U.S. at 874, 107 S.Ct. 3164 (emphasis added), but unmistakably held that the permissible impingement on a parolee's privacy is not unlimited. Id. at 875, 107 S.Ct. 3164. Certainly, nothing in Griffin purports to authorize substantial invasions of a parolee's privacy without any suspicion of individual wrongdoing whatsoever. 21 39 The Court's special needs cases since Griffin — and our own cases following the special needs line — similarly provide no support for the dissent's absolutist position. These cases reveal that each of two factors relevant to the search at issue independently bars this type of search and precludes it from coming within the closely guarded set of special needs cases authorizing suspicionless searches, Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67, 84, 121 S.Ct. 1281, 149 L.Ed.2d 205 (2001). Those factors are: (1) that the search was of Crawford's home, and (2) that the government's practice was designed to discover evidence of crime for future prosecution. As to the first factor, in a few exceptional special needs cases, searches not founded on any degree of individualized suspicion have been approved — but these searches have not involved the home. See Bd. of Educ. v. Earls, 536 U.S. 822, 122 S.Ct. 2559, 153 L.Ed.2d 735 (2002) (drug tests for extracurriculars at school); United States v. Gonzalez, 300 F.3d 1048 (9th Cir.2002) (searches of employee backpacks to prevent loss of inventory); Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (1995) (drug tests of athletes at school); Mich. Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990) (highway sobriety checkpoints); Skinner v. Ry. Labor Executives' Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 103 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989) (railroad employees' drug tests at work); Nat'l Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 109 S.Ct. 1384, 103 L.Ed.2d 685 (1989) (customs employees' drug tests at work); New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987) (purely administrative search of regulated business); see also McMorris v. Alioto, 567 F.2d 897 (9th Cir.1978) (purely administrative search in public buildings); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976) (fixed checkpoint routine border search). 22 In its enthusiastic embrace of decisions making possible the invasive searching of [l]iterally hundreds of thousands of suspicion-free, conviction-free citizens of our nation, see post at 735, the dissent completely ignores the significance of the fact that here, unlike in every suspicionless search approved above, law enforcement officials burst into a person's home, where the protective force of the Fourth Amendment is at its most powerful. See supra section II.A.1. 40 Second, the Supreme Court has recently emphasized that it has never approved a suspicionless special needs search conducted for criminal law enforcement purposes. In Ferguson, the Court struck down a program collecting and screening urine from pregnant mothers, without individualized suspicion of drug use, in order to preserve evidence of cocaine abuse for later prosecution. See 532 U.S. at 72-73, 85-86, 121 S.Ct. 1281. The factor rendering that program unconstitutional could not have been clearer: 41 The immediate objective of the searches was to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes ... [footnote:] We italicize those words lest our reasoning be misunderstood. In none of our previous special needs cases have we upheld the collection of evidence for criminal law enforcement purposes. 42 Id. at 83 & n. 20, 121 S.Ct. 1281 (emphasis in original); see also id. at 88, 121 S.Ct. 1281 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (None of our special needs precedents has sanctioned the routine inclusion of law enforcement, both in the design of the policy and in using arrests, ... as an integral part of a program which seeks to achieve legitimate, civil objectives. The traditional warrant and probable-cause requirements are waived in our previous cases on the explicit assumption that the evidence obtained in the search is not intended to be used for law enforcement purposes.); Earls, 122 S.Ct. at 2564, 2566 (permitting suspicionless searches because drug test results are not turned over to any law enforcement authority for use in criminal proceedings); City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 38, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000) (In none of these [suspicionless search] cases, however, did we indicate approval of a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.). As with the common practice of using Fourth Waiver conditions to search the homes of parolees, [t]he stark ... fact that characterizes this case is that [the Ferguson suspicionless screening] was designed to obtain evidence of criminal conduct by the [individuals searched] that would be turned over to the police and that could be admissible in subsequent criminal prosecutions. Ferguson, 532 U.S. at 85-86, 121 S.Ct. 1281. When, as in this case, searches are so designed, the Supreme Court has never granted its approval in the absence of individualized suspicion. 43 Because permitting a suspicionless search of Crawford's residence would offend both the protected status of the home and the bar against suspicionless searches for evidence of criminal conduct, we conclude that some individualized suspicion was required here. The appropriate standard in such cases is reasonable suspicion-the standard authorized by Knights and discussed in our past parole and probation decisions. 23 See, e.g., United States v. Guagliardo, 278 F.3d 868, 873 (9th Cir.2002) (affirming the validity of a probation term authorizing a warrantless search at any time by any officer, as long as the search was supported by reasonable suspicion), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 515, 154 L.Ed.2d 401; Davis, 932 F.2d at 758 (The permissible bounds of a probation search are governed by a reasonable suspicion standard.); United States v. Richardson, 849 F.2d 439, 442 (9th Cir.1988) (noting that the law permits searches of probationers without warrants and only upon a showing of reasonable cause); 24 see also Moreno v. Baca, 2002 WL 338366, at  (C.D.Cal.2002) (Given the holdings in [ Knights and Griffin ], the Court finds that at least reasonable suspicion is required to justify the search [of the parolee].). 44 The dissent proposes an alternative to reasonable suspicion: the arbitrary, capricious, or harassing standard propounded by the California Supreme Court. See Reyes, 19 Cal.4th at 753-54, 80 Cal.Rptr.2d 734, 968 P.2d 445; post at 723. Reyes adopted this standard only after it found individualized suspicion wholly unnecessary in a parole search. We are not free to adopt the Reyes suspicionless standard. As we have explained supra, in light of Supreme Court precedent applying the Fourth Amendment, a degree of individualized suspicion is constitutionally required in order to conduct a search of the home of a parolee. The federal Constitution, of course, governs our decision here. See supra note 17. To the extent that the dissent follows California in proposing its standard as a substitute for a constitutionally required degree of individualized suspicion, we are compelled to reject that approach. 45 Nor would we accept the dissent's proposed standard even if we were willing, contrary to Reyes, to characterize the standard as itself embodying a degree of individualized suspicion somewhere between reasonable suspicion and no suspicion at all. The Supreme Court has specifically cautioned against creating such new federal categories for measuring the constitutionality of government actions in Fourth Amendment cases. 25 See, e.g., United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 541, 105 S.Ct. 3304, 87 L.Ed.2d 381 (1985) (criticizing the creation of a new Fourth Amendment standard in addition to reasonable suspicion and probable cause); see also United States v. Payne, 181 F.3d 781, 788 n. 5 (6th Cir.1999) (applying the Montoya de Hernandez restriction to the parole search context). 26 Accordingly, we would not do so here. 46 After examining the totality of the circumstances — including Crawford's parole status, the parole condition, the location of the search, Crawford's expectation of privacy in his own home, the state's interest in rehabilitating parolees, and the interest of both the state and federal government in preventing and punishing recidivist crimes — we hold that a search of a parolee's home pursuant to a parole condition is reasonable only if it is supported by reasonable suspicion. 47 In this case, it is clear from the record that the law enforcement officials responsible for searching Crawford's residence did not have reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in continuing criminal activity or that evidence of the two-year-old bank robbery might be found in his home, even under a generous view of the totality of the circumstances. See United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002) (When discussing how reviewing courts should make reasonable-suspicion determinations, we have said repeatedly that they must look at the `totality of the circumstances' of each case....). 27 Indeed, the government conceded as much in the district court and in its brief on appeal. Both Bowdich and Berner repeatedly testified that when Bowdich conducted the parole search, he did not expect to find any evidence linking Crawford to the bank robbery or to any other ongoing criminal activity. Bowdich further acknowledged that he had ample reason to believe that evidence of the robbery would not be on the premises. The district court specifically found this testimony credible. 28 On this record, we hold that the law enforcement officials conducting the parole search of Crawford's home on July 27, 2000, clearly did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that the search would disclose any evidence of criminal activity. Because there was no reasonable suspicion, we agree with the district court that the parole search was illegal. 29
48 The government also contends that the parole search was permissible because Crawford completely waived all of his Fourth Amendment rights by signing the standard compulsory Fourth Waiver parole condition. 30 The essence of this theory is that the state may preemptively force all parolees to consent in blanket fashion to searches that would be unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. 31 We hold that a compulsory parole condition may not serve as a consent to engage in otherwise unreasonable searches, and that Crawford therefore did not consent to the parole search of his home. 49 It is clear that a search conducted pursuant to a valid consent is constitutionally permissible. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 222, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973). However, the Supreme Court has consistently demanded that the consent given be valid and meet well-established requirements: 50 When a prosecutor seeks to rely upon consent to justify the lawfulness of a search, he has the burden of proving that the consent was, in fact, freely and voluntarily given. This burden cannot be discharged by showing no more than acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority. 51 Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548-49, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968). 52 As the record reveals, before a prisoner becomes a parolee, and while still in custody, he is given a sheet of conditions that his prospective parole agent has him sign. The purported blanket waiver is among these conditions. If Crawford did not sign the conditions sheet, he would have been denied parole and returned immediately to prison custody. To call this choice — either waiver or certain incarceration — free and voluntary would be to misconceive the concept of meaningful consent. Under these conditions, we cannot equate acceptance of the compulsory condition with the sweeping voluntary consent the government claims it represents. Cf. Smyth v. Lubbers, 398 F.Supp. 777, 788 (W.D.Mich.1975) ([A] blanket authorization in an adhesion contract [waiving Fourth Amendment rights] is not the type of focused, deliberate, and immediate consent contemplated by the Constitution.); WAYNE R. LAFAVE, 4 SEARCH AND SEIZURE: A TREATISE ON THE FOURTH AMENDMENT § 10.10 (3d ed. 1996) ([T]o speak of consent in this context [of a signature to a condition of release] is to resort to a `manifest fiction,' for the probationer who purportedly waives his rights by accepting such a condition has little genuine option to refuse, and the waiver cannot be said to be voluntary in any generally-accepted sense of the term.) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 53 Moreover, if the mandatory parole condition were deemed to be a valid blanket consent, any constitutional protection for parolees would be rendered illusory — every state could force its parolees to sign the blanket waiver as a condition of parole, and every parolee's constitutional rights would thereby instantly vanish. Indeed, under the government's theory, all parolees could be forced to waive all constitutional rights, including the right to due process in revocation proceedings, or even the right to trial on any new offense allegedly committed during the parole period. We hold that parolees may not generally be forced as a threshold condition of their parole to surrender by blanket waiver their Fourth Amendment rights, including those so recently recognized by Knights. 54 Indeed, we have previously expressed unequivocally our disapproval of general waivers of Fourth Amendment rights as conditions of parole. See Toomey, 898 F.2d at 744 (We do not approve of general waivers of fourth amendment rights as a condition of parole.) (citations omitted); cf. Anobile v. Pelligrino, 303 F.3d 107, 123-25 (2d Cir.2002) (refusing, under the totality of the circumstances, to construe a purported blanket waiver as valid consent to otherwise unreasonable searches). We have no cause to question the vitality of that conclusion here. 55 Our holding on this issue is appropriately narrow. We find that, by virtue of a signature on a compulsory parole condition, a parolee does not, in advance and in blanket fashion, consent to a general waiver of his rights under the Fourth Amendment. 32