Court Opinion

ID: 9462039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:30:27.826085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:22.403761
License: Public Domain

HUFSTEDLER, Circuit Judge,
with whom Circuit Judges BROWNING and ELY join, concurring specially:
I agree with the majority that the search was illegal. I disagree with the majority’s dictum that the search would have been legal if it had been made by a probation officer.
I concur in the majority’s rationale that (1) the district court’s broad discretion in imposing conditions of probation is subject to the limitations that no condition of probation can be imposed that is not reasonably related to the rehabilitative purposes of the Federal Probation Act (18 U.S.C. § 3651) and to the legitimate needs of law enforcement in protecting the public; and (2) a condition of probation that infringes a probationer’s constitutionally protected right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures cannot be deemed to be reasonable.1 The condition of probation in question failed on both counts and therefore could not be relied upon to justify this search. That determination disposes of this case because no ground exists, other than the probation condition, which arguably could validate the search.
I cannot concur in the majority’s essay purporting to validate warrantless searches of probationers’ persons and dwellings (whether or not based on a *268probation condition), subject only to the limitation that the search must appear reasonable in some post-search proceeding in which the admissibility of the fruits of the search is questioned. I have fully expressed my view that a warrant is required to sustain a search by a parole officer of his parolee’s home, unless the particular search falls within one of the heretofore clearly delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement. (Latta v. Fitzharris (9th Cir. 1975), ante, 521 F.2d 246, 254 (op’n, Hufste-dler, J., dissenting).) The same reasoning applies to a probation officer’s searches of his probationer’s person and home.
A probationer has no less Fourth Amendment protection than a parolee. Indeed, his expectations of privacy may be somewhat greater than a parolee’s, because the rehabilitative goals of probation are perhaps more pronounced than those of parole, and the societal threat posed by granting a person probation may be less than that posed by paroling a prisoner. I need only to add that, as in Latta, statutes and regulations applicable to the searching officer’s conduct of searches of his charge are nonexistent.

. The majority’s view on these points is solidly supported by the recommendations of leading authorities in the field of probation. National Advisory Comm’n on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Corrections (1973), standard 16.11; American Bar Ass’n Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, “Standards Relating to Probation” (1970), standard 3.2; American Law Institute, Model Penal Code (1962) §§ 301.1, 305.13; cf. Sweeney v. United States (7th Cir. 1965) 353 F.2d 10, 11; Springer v. United States (9th Cir. 1945) 148 F.2d 411, 416; In re Bushman (1970) 1 Cal.3d 767, 776-77, 83 Cal.Rptr. 375, 380-81, 463 P.2d 727.