Opinion ID: 1463336
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Warrantless Search by Parole Officers

Text: Hamilton challenges the warrantless search of his home by the parole officers as violating his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. See U.S. Const. amend. IV (The right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. . . . ). When he was paroled, Hamilton acknowledged that as a condition of his parole, he would submit [his] person, place of residence and motor vehicles to search and seizure at any time, day or night, with or without a Search Warrant, whenever requested to do so by any Department of Community Punishment officer. (Oct. 3, 2007 Mot. Hr'g Tr. at 63.) The Arkansas Post Prison Transfer Board's Policies and Procedures limit this search condition to instances where the parole officer has reasonable suspicion that a [parolee] has committed a release violation or crime. (Add. at 23.) If Arkansas law allowed suspicionless searches as a condition of parole, then Samson v. California, which held that a suspicionless search pursuant to state law did not violate a parolee's Fourth Amendment rights, see 547 U.S. 843, 856-57, 126 S.Ct. 2193, 165 L.Ed.2d 250 (2006), would have ended our inquiry based on Hamilton's express acknowledgment of this condition. Cf. United States v. Perkins, 548 F.3d 510, 513 (7th Cir.2008) (noting that parolee withdrew challenge to suspicionless search of his home in light of Samson ). Because we agree with the district court that reasonable suspicion supported the parole officers' search, and because the government concedes that `reasonable suspicion' was necessary for a lawful search (Appellee's Br. at 16), we need not tarry on any difference between the notice of conditions provided to Hamilton and the Post Prison Transfer Board's policies. For purposes of this appeal then, we proceed on the premise that the parole officers were entitled to search Hamilton's home without a warrant only upon a finding of reasonable suspicion of a parole violation or a crime. See United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 118-19, 122 S.Ct. 587, 151 L.Ed.2d 497 (2001) (holding that a warrantless search of a probationer, who had agreed to such searches as a condition of probation, was reasonable under general Fourth Amendment analysis if supported by reasonable suspicion); Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873-74, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987) (holding that a state regulation allowing warrantless searches of a probationer's home upon reasonable suspicion of a probation violation was reasonable under the special needs exception to the warrant and probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment). Hamilton agrees that this is the proper standard, and he challenges only the existence of reasonable suspicion to support the warrantless search, a legal issue we review de novo. United States v. Winters, 491 F.3d 918, 921 (8th Cir.2007). Reasonable suspicion exists when, considering the totality of the circumstances known to the officer at the time, the officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting wrongdoing. See United States v. Henry, 429 F.3d 603, 609-10 (6th Cir.2005) (utilizing the reasonable suspicion test for a Terry [2] stop as articulated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981) in assessing whether parole officers had reasonable suspicion to meet the Griffin inquiry); United States v. Baker, 221 F.3d 438, 444 (3d Cir.2000) (same). Because ordinary Fourth Amendment analysis applies to a probationary search, the parole officers' subjective purpose for the search is irrelevant to our analysis, and we look only at whether the parole officers' conclusion that reasonable suspicion existed was objectively reasonable. Knights, 534 U.S. at 122, 122 S.Ct. 587 (rejecting the Ninth Circuit's investigatory purpose analysis). Hamilton argues that we must assess reasonable suspicion as of the time the decision to search was madewhen Parole Officer Harvey initially decided to send parole officers to perform a parole search of Hamilton's home based only on the knowledge that he owned a computer and had access to the internet, which were not prohibited by his parole conditions. But the Fourth Amendment applies to the act of searching, not the initial decision to search, and it applies an objective standard based on the information known by the searching officers at the time of the search. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (And in making [the Fourth Amendment] assessment it is imperative that the facts be judged against an objective standard: would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search `warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief' that the action taken was appropriate? (emphasis added)); see also United States v. Atlas, 94 F.3d 447, 450 (8th Cir.1996) (In analyzing whether a reasonable suspicion existed, the totality of the circumstancesthe whole picture must be taken into account. We must consider the information available to the police at the time of the search. (internal citations and marks omitted)). We reject Hamilton's argument that we may look only at the facts known to Officer Harvey when she decided to send Officers Parker and Tucker to make a home visit to a parolee, and we proceed to determine whether the parole officers violated Hamilton's rights under the Fourth Amendment based on the officers' knowledge at the scene of the search. In this case, Parole Officers Parker and Tucker knew that Hamilton had previous convictions related to child pornography received over the internet and that Hamilton had told his parole officer that he had a computer and used the internet. Armed with this information, the officers visited Hamilton's residence and knocked on the door to his trailer, identifying themselves as parole officers. At this point, Hamilton's Fourth Amendment rights had not yet been implicated, as it does not violate the Fourth Amendment merely to knock on a door without probable cause. United States v. Spotted Elk, 548 F.3d 641, 655 (8th Cir.2008) (quoting United States v. Cruz-Mendez, 467 F.3d 1260, 1264 (10th Cir.2006) for the proposition that [a]s commonly understood, a `knock and talk' is a consensual encounter and therefore does not contravene the Fourth Amendment, even absent reasonable suspicion.); cf. United States v. LeBlanc, 490 F.3d 361, 369 (5th Cir.2007) (Were we to impose a requirement that a probation officer show reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before visiting a probationer at his home, supervision would become effectively impossible.); United States v. Reyes, 283 F.3d 446, 462 (2d Cir.2002) ([B]ecause a home visit is far less intrusive than a probation search, probation officers conducting a home visit are not subject to the reasonable suspicion standard applicable to probation searches under Knights.  (emphasis omitted)). There is no evidence in the record that the officers ordered Hamilton to open the door. Rather, upon hearing the parole officers' identification, Hamilton asked the officers to let him get dressed, and he then opened the door a few minutes later. While waiting for Hamilton to open the door, the parole officers heard a commotion, and, in the officers' view, it took Hamilton an inordinate amount of time to get dressed and answer the door, considering the size of the trailer and his state of dresswearing only a pair of sweat pantswhen he finally did open the door. Officer Parker informed Hamilton that they were there to do a home visit and a parole search and asked Hamilton if he had a problem with that, to which Hamilton responded, No. Everything's fine. (Hr'g Tr. at 87.) Parker then stepped inside the trailer and immediately saw several empty beer cans strewn about, a clear indication that Hamilton had violated the condition of his parole requiring complete abstinence from alcohol. Having lawfully entered Hamilton's trailer and observed in plain view a clear indication that Hamilton had violated his parole conditions, the circumstances known by the officers justified their continued search. The officers were suspicious that Hamilton was attempting to hide evidence of a parole violation or a crime by the inordinate amount of time it took him to answer the door, the commotion they heard while waiting, and Hamilton's state of dress when he finally opened the door. Their suspicions that Hamilton was violating the terms of his parole were confirmed by the empty beer cans. However, it was obvious to the officers that Hamilton had not been attempting to hide evidence that he had been drinking, as the beer cans were strewn about the trailer. The yet unanswered question of what Hamilton may have been trying to hide, coupled with the knowledge that Hamilton was on parole for possessing child pornography received over the internet and that he had told his parole officer that he owned a computer and accessed the internet, justified the officers' actions in opening the lid to the laptop computer that was sitting on the table. See United States v. Winters, 491 F.3d 918, 922 (8th Cir.2007) (considering the totality of the circumstances, including knowledge that the defendant was a prior drug offender, in assessing officers' reasonable suspicion to search defendant's car); United States v. Hoosman, 62 F.3d 1080, 1081 (8th Cir.1995) (holding that officer had reasonable suspicion to search defendant's automobile based on his belief that defendant was attempting to hide a weapon or contraband, considering the officer's knowledge that defendant had a history of trafficking drugs and officer's observations of defendant moving from side to side in the car when the officer activated his flashing lights); cf. Wilson v. Arkansas, 25 Ark. App. 45, 752 S.W.2d 46, 47-48 (1988) (holding that appellant, who was subject to identical supervision condition at issue here, was not denied Fourth Amendment protections because his refusal [to allow officers to search his residence] gave the officers `reasonable cause to believe that the appellant had failed to comply with a condition of his probation,' justifying entry of residence where they saw marijuana in plain view). Once the laptop computer was open, the media title Daddy and Daughter provided ample reasonable suspicion to search further for child pornography. The district court properly denied Hamilton's motion to suppress the evidence seized during the parole officers' search.