Opinion ID: 2588357
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Arbitrary, Capricious, or Harassing Searches

Text: As indicated, federal constitutional standards govern our review of issues relating to the suppression of evidence obtained from police searches and seizures. ( People v. Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 794, 97 Cal.Rptr.2d 914, 3 P.3d 311; see ante, fn. 1.) In holding the evidence obtained from the instant search must be suppressed, the majority reasons that a warrantless search following a detention of a probationer that is supported by neither reasonable suspicion nor advance police knowledge of an applicable probation condition is arbitrary or harassing and therefore unreasonable and subject to suppression. (Maj. opn., ante, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 436-437, 146 P.3d at pp. 970-971) As a preliminary matter, the-majority is wrong to characterize a detention and search of a probationer as arbitrary or harassing, merely because reasonable suspicion and advance knowledge of a probation search condition are found lacking. An officer can act with a legitimate law enforcement purpose without knowing the person under investigation is a probationer, and an officer's mistaken belief as to the sufficiency of legal grounds for a search does not transform a search that is later found to be illegal into one that was arbitrary or harassing for lack of a proper law enforcement purpose. Put another way, when a court later determines that an officer's detention of a probationer was not supported by reasonable suspicion, the officer's mere mistake in concluding such suspicion existed does not render the detention and subsequent search arbitrary, capricious or harassing. (See People v. Cervantes (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 1404, 1408, 127 Cal.Rptr.2d 468 [[a] mere legal or factual error by an officer that would otherwise render a search illegal, e.g., a mistake in concluding that probable cause exists for an arrest, does not render the search arbitrary, capricious or harassing].) More importantly, the United States Supreme Court has not ruled that, under the Fourth Amendment, the reasonableness of a suspicionless search of a probationer or parolee is dependent on the searching officer's knowledge of a valid search condition. Instead, the high court has commented: Under California precedent, we note, an officer would not act reasonably in conducting a suspicionless search absent knowledge that the person stopped for the search is a parolee. See People v. Sanders [(2003) 31 Cal.4th 318, 331-332, 2 Cal. Rptr.3d 630, 73 P.3d 496; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20.] ( Samson, supra, ___ U.S. at p. ___, 126 S.Ct. at p. 2202, fn. 5, italics added.) It bears emphasis that the high court expressed this point while dismissing the concern that California's suspicionless search system inflicts dignitary harms that arouse strong resentment in parolees and undermine their ability to reintegrate into productive society. ( Id. at p. ___, 126 S.Ct. at p. 2202.) In doing so, the high court shows it evidently regards the matter of officer knowledge as a California requirement that guards against the type of searches that potentially could frustrate the goals of California's parole system, and not as a Fourth Amendment requirement of a reasonable search or a federal constitutional basis for suppression of evidence. On this last point, I observe that the majority's categorical approach here is similar to the approach advocated by the dissent in Samson. That is, the Samson dissent would have adopted a bright-line rule of unreasonableness to the effect that the Fourth Amendment does not permit warrantless searches of parolees that are supported neither by individualized suspicion nor by special needs. ( Samson, supra, ___ U.S. at p. ___, 126 S.Ct. at p. 2203 (dis. opn. of Stevens, J.).) The dissent also suggested [i]t would necessarily be arbitrary, capricious, and harassing to conduct a suspicionless search of someone without knowledge of the status that renders that person, in the State's judgment, susceptible to such an invasion. ( Id. at p. ___, fn. 7, 126 S.Ct. at p. 2207, fn. 7, italics added). Significantly, the Samson majority did not adopt or otherwise approve of the dissent's categorical approaches, and this court likewise should avoid doing so here. Indeed, the majority here is unable to cite to any high court opinion that has embraced this particular rule in assessing when searches involving probationers or parolees are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. That is not surprising, as even the majority here and courts in other jurisdictions cite California decisional law, not the federal Constitution, as the origin of that rule. (Maj. opn., ante, 51 Cal. Rptr.3d at p. 437, 146 P.3d at p. 971; e.g., United States v. Stuckey (S.D.N.Y.2006) 2006 WL 2390268, , fn. 2; United States v. Albert (N.D.Cal.2006) 2006 WL 2078564, .)