Court Opinion

ID: 9492242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:35:59.095789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:12.113840
License: Public Domain

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion. I agree with the district court that this search by the state parole officer did not violate the Constitution. In Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987), the Supreme Court outlined how courts should analyze searches of probationers and parolees and their property under the Fourth Amendment. Griffin concerned the search of a probationer’s home, but subsequent courts have analyzed searches of parolees’ homes, like the search here, under the Griffin approach. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 152 F.3d 680, 684-87 (7th Cir.1998). Because I believe that the search here is permissible under the probationer standard, I need not analyze whether parolees receive less Fourth Amendment protection than probationers. See Jones, 152 F,3d at 684 n. 3.
In Griffin, the Court stated its holding as “[t]he search of Griffin’s home satisfied the demands of the Fourth Amendment because it was carried out pursuant to a regulation that itself satisfies the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement under well-established principles.” 483 U.S. at 873, 107 S.Ct. 3164. I think the Griffin Court describes a two-step analysis: (1) whether the regulation pursuant to which the search was carried out satisfies the Fourth Amendment reasonableness requirement and (2) whether the facts of the search itself satisfy that regulation. See United States v. Conway, 122 F.3d 841, 842-43 (9th Cir.1997) (analyzing first whether Washington state’s scheme satisfied Griffin and then analyzing whether the probation officer possessed the “reasonable cause” required by Washington *792law). Analysis of both of these steps is more complicated in the instant case than it was in Griffin, because in the instant ease the state court has not defined the scope of its regulation. In Griffin, which was an appeal from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Supreme Court could and did defer to the state supreme court’s holding that its regulation was satisfied. In this case, we have neither a state court determination in this exact case that its regulation was or was not satisfied nor a state court decision in any case involving this policy to guide our determination. Determining that scope is necessary for an analysis of both of the steps described above. However, the policy is a written one and I believe we can make the decision whether it meets the standard of Griffin. Below, I first analyze the Kentucky policy at question and then turn to the two steps.
My reading of the policy leads to the conclusion that it authorizes searches of parolees 1, at least where a parole officer has a “reasonable suspicion” to believe that the parolee is in possession of contraband. In a part of the policy entitled “VI. Procedures,” the policy provides in relevant part as follows:
A. Search
When an officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that a client or other person under the jurisdiction of the Corrections Cabinet is in possession of contraband, the officer may conduct an investigation and search to validate the suspicion or information received ....
1. Warrantless Search
a. When reasonable suspicion exists to believe that a client is violating a condition of probation or parole or exigent or emergency circumstances exist, a probation and parole officer may search without a warrant.
b. [describing exigent circumstances that justify searching without a warrant].
Policy at *3. A conflict exists between the text immediately following A., which requires reasonable suspicion that the parolee possesses contraband in order to search, and A.l.a., which requires reasonable suspicion only that the parolee is violating a condition of parole. I think an additional fact tips the balance in favor of interpreting the Kentucky policy as authorizing searches where there is reasonable suspicion that the parolee possesses contraband, although there may not be where the reasonable suspicion relates to violation of some other condition of parole. The conditions of supervision given to Payne provide that he agrees, to be searched if his parole officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that Payne possesses contraband on his person or property. This apparently standard language provides some indication that Kentucky views its policy as authorizing searches where there is reasonable suspicion that Payne possesses contraband.2
The next interpretive task is to discern the meaning of “reasonable suspicion” under the Kentucky policy. It defines “reasonable suspicion” as “[l]ess stringent a standard than probable cause, reasonable suspicion requires that the authority acting be able to point to specific and ar-ticulable facts that, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, rea*793sonably warrant a belief that a condition of probation or parole has been or is being violated.”3 Policy at *1. As noted above, Kentucky courts have not passed on the meaning of this language.
To fill this gap, the majority reasons that “the policy appears to adopt the federal definition of reasonable suspicion” because “[i]ts definition of ‘reasonable suspicion’ uses phrases familiar from federal case law.” Majority opinion at 786. I, on the other hand, believe that the policy at issue, which Kentucky adopted, effective May 1989, a little less than two years after the Supreme Court’s Griffin decision, was intended to incorporate the same “reasonable suspicion” standard and to have the same substantive meaning as the “reasonable grounds” standard that the Court upheld in Griffin.4
With that construction of Kentucky law, I move to the second step of the analysis— whether, under Kentucky law, the parole officer here had a reasonable suspicion that Payne was in possession of contraband.5 I think the facts of this case do create a reasonable suspicion that Payne possessed contraband. Some six weeks earlier, Payne’s parole officer received a report from Detective Smith that Payne had a large amount of methamphetamine in the trunk of his car and that Payne was living in a different location than the one he had provided to his parole officer. Pri- or to the search, Payne’s parole officer confirmed that Payne was no longer working at his previous place of employment. Payne had not advised-his parole officer that he was no longer employed. Payne’s parole officer confirmed that Payne was no longer living in the county that he was limited to as a condition of parole. Payne also had failed to report as required by his parole conditions. Taken together, I think the facts of this case have equal weight to those in Griffin, where the Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded that a tip that the probationer “had” or “may have had” an illegal weapon constituted reasonable grounds. The basis of the knowledge of the officer who gave the tip was unknown. See 483 U.S. at 875, 107 S.Ct. 3164 (describing Wisconsin Supreme Court holding). Although the tip here was older — six weeks had passed before the search occurred, the tip here was not qualified (“has or may have”) like the tip in Griffin. The evidence that Payne had absconded from supervision also strengthens the inference that Payne was involved in illegal activities and supports the parole officer’s conclusion that he had reasonable suspicion to conclude that Payne may possess contraband. In Griffin, the probationer had not absconded. For these reasons, I think that under the totality of these facts, Payne’s parole officer had reasonable suspicion that Payne possessed contraband, and thus under Kentucky law, the search was proper.
*794The suspicion is not limited, as the Majority limits it, to possession of the particular methamphetamine observed six weeks earlier but rather that a parolee who has moved, left his employment, has not been reporting and has been seen in possession of drugs is likely to be in possession of drugs.
Even if the majority is correct that Kentucky chose to borrow the federal case law defining reasonable suspicion, I do not think that the reasonable suspicion cases relied on by the majority, none of which involve searches of parolees and probationers, can be transferred directly to the context of a search of a parolee. While the tip here alone would not suffice to establish reasonable suspicion to, for example, stop a non-parolee six weeks after receiving the tip, that does not mean that the tip combined with the other facts noted above would not be enough in .the parole context. The majority’s analysis focuses on the tip and compares it to cases that do not involve parolees with prior drug convictions (albeit for possession charges that occurred while in prison) who have absconded from supervision and are known not to be employed. In my opinion, the strength of the tip necessary to establish a parole officer’s reasonable suspicion that a parolee with two convictions for drug offenses who has absconded is less than if the tip concerns an ordinary citizen. As the Court noted in Griffin,
For the same reason, and also because it is the very assumption of the institution of probation that the probationer is in need of rehabilitation and is more likely than the ordinary citizen to violate the law, we think it enough if the information provided indicates, as it did here, only the likelihood (“had or might have guns”) of facts justifying the search.
Griffin, 483 U.S. at 880, 107 S.Ct. 3164. I would find that reasonable suspicion exists here even if the majority is correct that the Kentucky policy incorporates the federal reasonable suspicion standard.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. The policy also covers searches of probationers and its substance does not differ for probationers. Because the defendant here is a parolee, I will only refer to parolees.

. I have concluded here that Kentucky did not authorize searches of parolees based on a reasonable suspicion that the parolee violated a condition of parole; I am not saying that Kentucky could not authorize warrant-less searches of parolees based on reasonable suspicion that the parolee has violated a condition of parole only that it did not. My construction of Kentucky's policy makes it unnecessary to reach that issue. Cf. Conway, 122 F.3d at 842 (upholding search of probationer pursuant to Washington state law authorizing searches "[i]f there is reasonable cause to believe that an offender has violated a condition or requirement of the sentence”).

. This definition provides some support for the conclusion that a Kentucky parole officer can search a parolee's home if the parole officer has a reasonable suspicion lhaL the parolee has violated a condition of parole, rather than a more narrow requirement that a parole officer have a reasonable suspicion that the parolee has violated the condition of parole regarding possession of contraband. I do not think this tips the balance away from my conclusion staled above.

. This is not to say that the Supreme Court in Griffin independently analyzed the meaning of the “reasonable grounds” standard under Wisconsin law. The Court made it clear that it did not independently analyze the meaning of the "reasonable grounds” standard. Specifically, the Court slated that "the Wisconsin Supreme Court — the ultimaLe authority on issues of Wisconsin law — has held LhaL a tip from a police detective that Griffin 'had' or ‘may have had’ an illegal weapon at his home constituted the requisite 'reasonable grounds.’ Whether or not we would choose to interpret a similarly worded federal regulation in that fashion, we are bound by the state court's interpretation, which is relevant to our constitutional analysis only .insofar as it fixes the meaning of the regulation.” 483 U.S. at 875, 107 S.Ct. 3164 (citation omitted).

.Griffin did not need to perform this step of the analysis because the Wisconsin Supreme Court had already done it since Griffin was a direct appeal from the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision.