Opinion ID: 3038857
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Even if the Home Visits are Searches, they are

Text: Reasonable [5] “[W]hether a particular search meets the reasonableness standard is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individu- al’s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” Vernonia Sch. Dist., 515 U.S. at 652-53 (internal quotation marks omitted). The dis- 8 We note that Wyman’s reasoning on the question of whether the home visits are searches under the Fourth Amendment arguably has been called into question by the Supreme Court’s subsequent Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The Court has since repeatedly held that consensual administrative searches qualify as searches under the Fourth Amendment, even though refusal to consent carried no criminal penalty and the searches were not part of a criminal investigation. See, e.g., Bd. of Educ. v. Earls, 536 U.S. 822, 833 (2002) (holding that consensual random drug testing of students participating in extra-curricular activities were searches under the Fourth Amendment even though they were not part of a criminal investigation and a positive test resulted only in suspension from participation); Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995) (same); see also United States v. Gonzalez, 300 F.3d 1048 (9th Cir. 2002) (holding that consensual suspicionless searches of government employees’ personal belongings in the workplace were searches even though refusal to consent carried no criminal penalty and the searches were not for law enforcement purposes). Wyman, however, still controls this case because of its “direct application,” despite the reasoning of these later administrative search cases. See Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237 (1997) (“If a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.” (quoting Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989))); see also United States v. Hatter, 532 U.S. 557, 567 (2001). 11510 SANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO trict court found that the Project 100% home visits, even if considered searches, were reasonable under Wyman. Although we need not reach the question to decide Appellants’ Fourth Amendment challenge, because the home visits do not constitute searches under Wyman, we agree with the district court that even if the home visits are searches under the Fourth Amendment, they are reasonable.9
In Wyman, the Court concluded that the home visits, even if considered a search, were valid under the Fourth Amendment “because [they] did not descend to the level of unreasonableness . . . which is the Fourth Amendment’s standard.” Wyman, 400 U.S. at 318. The Court weighed several factors in balancing the governmental interest in conducting home visits against the intrusion into the welfare applicant’s privacy. Id. at 318-24. Relevant to this analysis were: (1) the public’s strong interest in the protection of dependent children and ensuring that aid provided from tax revenue reaches its intended and proper recipients; (2) the statute’s focus on assistance and rehabilitation; (3) that the home visit was not a criminal investigation and did not involve police or uniformed authority; (4) the visits’ procedural safeguards, including providing advanced written notice and prohibiting forced entry or “snooping” within the home; and (5) the serious administrative difficulties posed by a warrant requirement in the welfare context. Id.10 9 Although we need not resolve the issue for Fourth Amendment purposes, nonetheless, addressing the “reasonableness” and “special needs” issues is helpful in analyzing Appellants’ challenge under Article I § 13 of the California Constitution. While California’s constitutional analysis parallels the inquiry under the Fourth Amendment, see Part II.A, infra, the California Supreme Court, in its parallel analysis of the California Constitution, is not bound by the strictures of Agostini, 521 U.S. at 237, as noted in footnote 8, supra. 10 The Court also distinguished Wyman from its earlier decisions in Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967), and See v. City of SeatSANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO 11511 Here, as in Wyman, the home visits serve the important governmental interests of verifying an applicant’s eligibility for welfare benefits and preventing fraud. As the Court acknowledged in Wyman, the public has a strong interest in ensuring that aid provided from tax dollars reaches its proper and intended recipients. Id. at 318. While the visits in this case differ from those in Wyman in that they are conducted by peace officers, this distinction does not transform a Project 100% visit into a “search in the traditional criminal law context.” Id. at 317.11 The investigators are not uniformed officers and will only enter the applicant’s home with consent. Although the investigators will report any evidence of criminal activity for potential prosecution, this is not the underlying purpose of the visit, and no criminal prosecutions for welfare tle, 387 U.S. 541 (1967), where the petitioners had been criminally cited for refusing to consent to the warrantless inspections of their home and commercial warehouse, conducted to ensure health and safety code compliance. While the Court struck down the warrantless inspections in those cases, it noted that they involved a true search for violations and refusal to consent to inspection carried criminal penalties, whereas in Wyman, refusal to consent resulted only in a denial of welfare benefits. Wyman, 400 U.S. at 324-25. 11 This conclusion is further supported by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. For example, in Burger, the Court upheld the warrantless inspection of a vehicle-dismantling business by uniformed police officers, reasoning: [W]e fail to see any constitutional significance in the fact that police officers, rather than “administrative” agents, are permitted to conduct the [ ] inspection. The significance respondent alleges lies in the role of police officers as enforcers of the penal laws and in the officers’ power to arrest for offenses other than violations of the administrative scheme. It is, however, important to note that state police officers, like those in New York, have numerous duties in addition to those associated with traditional police work. . . . So long as a regulatory scheme is properly administrative, it is not rendered illegal by the fact that the inspecting officer has the power to arrest individuals for violations other than those created by the scheme itself. 482 U.S. at 717. 11512 SANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO fraud have stemmed from inconsistencies uncovered during a Project 100% home visit since the program’s inception in 1997.12 The Project 100% home visits also have many of the same procedural safeguards that the Wyman Court found significant. See Wyman, 400 U.S. at 320-21. Applicants are given notice that they will be subject to a mandatory home visit and visits generally occur only during normal business hours. When the investigators arrive to conduct the visit, they must ask for consent to enter the home. If the applicant does not consent to the visit, or withdraws consent at anytime during the visit, the visit will not begin or will immediately be terminated, as the case may be.13 12 The record shows that investigators would pass along evidence of criminal activity, such as drug use, child abuse, or even past welfare fraud, discovered during the course of a home visit. There is no evidence, however, that applicants have ever been prosecuted for welfare fraud as a result of inconsistencies discovered during the home visit, supporting a conclusion that the visits are intended, and in fact used, only as an eligibility verification tool. But the dissent “fail[s] to see why it follows from the lack of prosecutions for current or attempted welfare fraud that the home visits do not rise to the level of a traditional Fourth Amendment search.” Dissent at 11532 n.6. We need look no further than Wyman, however, to learn why the discovery of evidence of other crimes does not cause a home visit to rise to the level of a Fourth Amendment search: If the visitation serves to discourage misrepresentation or fraud, such a byproduct of that visit does not impress upon the visit itself a dominant criminal investigative aspect. And if the visit should, by chance, lead to the discovery of fraud and a criminal prosecution should follow . . . that is a routine and expected fact of life and a consequence no greater than that which necessarily ensues upon any other discovery by a citizen of criminal conduct. Wyman, 400 U.S. at 323; see also Berger, 482 U.S. at 717 (“So long as a regulatory scheme is properly administrative, it is not rendered illegal by the fact that the inspecting officer has the power to arrest individuals for violations other than those created by the scheme itself.”). 13 In Wyman, the Court explained that any “burden” upon a homeowner’s right against unreasonable intrusion is minimized because “[f]orcible entry or entry under false pretenses or visitation outside working hours or SANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO 11513 Finally, the Court’s concern that a warrant requirement would pose serious administrative difficulties in the welfare context is also present in this case. Id. at 323-24 (“The warrant procedure, which the plaintiff appears to claim to be so precious to her, even if civil in nature, is not without its seriously objectionable features in the welfare context.”). As the Court in Wyman explained, “if a warrant could be obtained, it presumably could be applied for ex parte, its execution would require no notice, it would justify entry by force, and its hours for execution would not be so limited as those prescribed for home visitation.” Id. This type of warrant requirement would make home visits more intrusive than the County’s current suspicionless home visit program because welfare applicants’ rights and privacy would be subject to greater infringement. [6] Therefore, because the Project 100% visits serve an important governmental interest, are not criminal investigations, occur with advance notice and the applicant’s consent, and alleviate the serious administrative difficulties associated with welfare eligibility verification, we hold that the home visits are reasonable under the Supreme Court’s decision in Wyman. snooping in the home are forbidden.” Wyman, 400 U.S. at 387-88. While Appellants and the dissent, Dissent at 11533, argue that Project 100% allows “snooping” because investigators ask homeowners to open closets and drawers, we disagree. The Project 100% investigators only ask to view the contents of closets or drawers for verification-related purposes, and will do so only with the homeowner’s explicit consent. For example, investigators may verify that children live in the home by asking to see children’s clothing. Similarly, if the applicant is a single mother, investigators may verify that no males live in the home by asking to see the contents of the medicine cabinet. Since the investigators have legitimate verification-related reasons for viewing such items not in plain view, and only do so with the homeowner’s explicit consent, their activity cannot fairly be characterized as “snooping.” 11514 SANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO
[7] While Wyman provides adequate, independent grounds for holding that the Project 100% home visits are reasonable, the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has evolved significantly since Wyman, providing further support for this conclusion. Subsequent to Wyman, the Court articulated its “special needs” exception to the warrant requirement, holding that “[a] search unsupported by probable cause can be constitutional . . . when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probablecause requirement impracticable.” Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court’s “special needs” analysis involves two steps: (1) determining whether the government has articulated a valid “special need;” and, (2) analyzing whether the proposed administrative search is justified in light of that articulated “special need.” United States v. Scott, 450 F.3d 863, 869-72 (9th Cir. 2006). a. The County’s administration of its welfare system is a “special need” In Griffin, the Supreme Court examined whether the State’s operation of its probation system was a “special need” that justified the warrantless search of a probationer’s home, based on reasonable grounds to suspect the presence of contraband. Griffin, 483 U.S. at 872. The Court held that the operation of a probation system was a valid “special need,” explaining that the system worked towards genuine rehabilitation through intensive supervision and that a “warrant requirement would interfere to an appreciable degree.” Id. at 873-76. More recently, in Earls, the Court reaffirmed its “special needs” reasoning, holding that a public school’s policy of requiring suspicionless drug testing for student athletes was justified in light of the school’s “special need” to prevent and deter drug use among its students. Earls, 536 U.S. at 838. The SANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO 11515 Court emphasized that the searches were not conducted for law enforcement purposes, and explained that the “special need” justified the intrusion on the student’s privacy without individualized suspicion. Id. at 829. In Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67 (2001), however, the Court held that a public hospital’s policy of identifying and testing mothers whose children tested positive for drugs at birth was not justified under the “special needs” doctrine because “the immediate objective of the searches was to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes.” Id. at 83 (emphasis in the original). The Court explained that the “central and indispensable feature of the policy from its inception was the use of law enforcement to coerce the patients into substance abuse treatment,” and concluded that “the purpose actually served by the [ ] searches is ultimately indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control.” Id. at 81 (internal quotation marks omitted). Ferguson turned on the fact that the searches at issue were conducted for general law enforcement purposes. See id. The Court emphasized that while the drug testing program partially served a non-criminal purpose, the program’s efficacy was ultimately tied to the successful prosecution of mothers whose children tested positive for drugs. Id. at 82-84. In Wyman, however, the Court specifically noted that home visits in the welfare context primarily serve the administrative function of eligibility verification, which is not a general law enforcement purpose. Wyman, 400 U.S. at 326. As discussed supra, the primary purpose of the Project 100% home visits is to verify eligibility for welfare benefits. While there may be a fine line between verifying eligibility and investigating fraud, the record here supports that the visits are indeed used primarily for verification and prevention purposes. Since the program’s inception in 1997, not a single criminal prosecution for welfare fraud has resulted from inconsistencies uncovered during a Project 100% home visit. While investigators are required to report evidence of criminal violations for potential 11516 SANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO prosecution, this does not make the home visits criminal investigations. See Wyman, 400 U.S. at 317. Moreover, unlike in Ferguson, 532 U.S. at 82-84, Project 100%’s efficacy is not dependent upon the prosecution of suspected welfare fraud cases. [8] Therefore, because the underlying purpose of the home visits is to verify eligibility for welfare benefits, and not for general law enforcement purposes, we conclude that San Diego County has articulated a valid “special need.” b. Project 100% is reasonable in light of the County’s “special need” [9] Because we conclude that the administration of the County’s welfare system presents a “special need” beyond those of normal law enforcement, we must now determine whether this need is “important enough to override the individual’s acknowledged privacy interest [and] sufficiently vital to suppress the Fourth Amendment’s normal requirement of individualized suspicion.” Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 318 (1997). “[W]hether a particular search meets the reasonableness standard is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 652-53 (internal quotation marks omitted). Specifically, we consider: (1) the nature of the privacy interest upon which the search intrudes; (2) the character of the intrusion; and (3) the importance of the government interest at stake. See Earls, 536 U.S. at 830-34; Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 654-61. [10] Here, the nature of Appellants’ privacy interest is significant because the government is conducting searches of their homes, a traditionally protected area of personal privacy.14 14 The dissent quotes Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 40 (2001) (“[T]he Fourth Amendment draws a firm line at the entrance to the house.”), to support its assertion that the County’s home visits are unreaSANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO 11517 As illustrated by Griffin, however, a person’s relationship with the state can reduce that person’s expectation of privacy even within the sanctity of the home. When eligibility depends, in part, upon a person’s physical residence in the state and actual presence at the place designated as their residence, verification of eligibility may be reasonably required in the form of the home visit under review here in order to ensure that funds are properly spent. Moreover, the home visits are conducted with the applicant’s express consent, thus, further reducing the applicant’s expectation of privacy.15 Therefore, it is reasonable for welfare applicants who desire direct cash governmental aid to undergo eligibility verification through home visits. sonable. Dissent at 11544. Kyllo, however, is completely inapposite and has no application to this case. The dissent’s extensive reliance on Kyllo here and elsewhere, see Dissent at 11534, 11538, 11541, is misplaced because Kyllo involved a classic criminal law enforcement investigation conducted without the homeowner’s consent. Likewise, the dissent’s extensive reliance on Scott, see Dissent at 11534-35, 11538, 11540, 11542, 11543 n.13, is also misplaced. Scott expressly held that the scheme under examination there did not qualify under the special needs doctrine. See 450 F.3d at 872. Here, in contrast, the dissent “agree[s] with the majority that the County has articulated a valid ‘special need’ beyond ordinary law enforcement concerns.” Dissent at 11538. 15 Without citing any authority, the dissent asserts that a welfare applicant’s consent to a home visit does nothing to reduce her expectation of privacy because “the coercive nature of the home visit renders the notion of consent effectively meaningless.” Dissent at 11543. Wyman, however, addresses this very concern and reaches the opposite conclusion that even though the consequence of refusing a home visit is the denial of benefits, “[t]he choice is entirely [the applicant’s], and nothing of constitutional magnitude is involved.” Wyman, 400 U.S. at 325 (emphasis added). In addition, this Court has recently observed that “government may sometimes condition benefits on waiver of Fourth Amendment rights — for instance, when dealing with contractors, or paying welfare benefits.” Scott, 450 F.3d at 867-68 (citing Wyman, 400 U.S. at 317-18) (emphasis added). 11518 SANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO [11] Next, we must weigh the character of the intrusion on Appellants’ privacy. Appellants argue that the home visits are virtually unlimited in scope. As discussed above, however, the record demonstrates that the procedures used in conducting the home visits are designed to reduce the intrusion on the applicant’s privacy. Investigators only examine areas of the home that they believe will provide relevant information pertaining to the applicant’s welfare eligibility. If at any point before or during the visit, the applicant refuses to consent, or withdraws consent, the visit ends immediately. Additionally, inspections are completed in a reasonable amount of time and there is no evidence that any of the applicants has been subjected to abusive behavior during the home visits. Finally, we must analyze the need for the intrusion in light of its efficacy in achieving the governmental interests at stake. Appellants argue that there is no statistically significant evidence that Project 100% has actually reduced welfare fraud. The County, however, produced data showing that, during the five-year period during which Project 100% was implemented, the overall denial rate increased from 40.6% to 47.7%, and there was an additional 4-5% increase in application withdrawals. While it is difficult to measure the precise efficacy of Project 100%, these empirical observations support the logical connection between the home visits and their intended purpose. Moreover, the visits are an effective method of verifying eligibility for benefits, and, at a minimum, the visits provide an important deterrent effect. Appellants also contend that all necessary information for purposes of verification can be obtained from other sources and that the home visits merely duplicate the intake interviews. The Supreme Court has stressed, however, that the Fourth Amendment does not require that the government use the least intrusive means “because the logic of such elaborate less-restrictive alternative arguments could raise insuperable barriers to the exercise of virtually all search-and-seizure powers.” Earls, 536 U.S. at 837. More importantly, the Court SANCHEZ v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO 11519 has already rejected a similar argument in Wyman, explaining that “[a]lthough . . . secondary sources might be helpful, they would not always assure verification of actual residence or of actual physical presence in the home, which are requisites for AFDC benefits . . . .” Wyman, 400 U.S. at 322. [12] Accordingly, because the Project 100% home visits are conducted in a reasonable manner, and serve an important administrative purpose, the Supreme Court’s “special needs” line of cases provides further support for our conclusion that the home visits are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.16