Court Opinion

ID: 9631505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:40:38.103599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:55.526668
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I generally agree with the sentiments expressed in Justice Kennard’s concurring and dissenting opinion. Almost 13 years ago, this court addressed the question of what quantum of evidence law enforcement officers must possess when seeking to invoke a parole search condition of an adult parolee. (People v. Burgener (1986) 41 Cal.3d 505 [224 Cal.Rptr. 112, 714 P.2d 1251] (Burgener).) To resolve the issue, Burgener carefully balanced two important factors. On the one hand, society has a strong need, based on its duty to protect the public, to determine whether one granted conditional liberty following a period of incarceration is complying with the terms of parole. On the other hand," an adult parolee, attempting the often difficult reintegration into society, retains a degree of privacy that, while less than that of nonparolees, is nevertheless greater than that of persons still physically confined in prison. (Id. at pp. *766533-534.) After balancing these factors, Burgener held that neither a search warrant nor probable cause was required under the Fourth Amendment. A parole officer, however, must possess a reasonable suspicion the parolee had reoffended or otherwise violated the terms of his or her parole before invoking the search condition and conducting a warrantless search of the person or property of an adult parolee.
Today, the majority dispenses with even this minimal protection of an adult parolee’s privacy. For the reasons stated in Justice Kennard’s separate opinion, I cannot agree with the majority’s reasoning. I write separately to emphasize two points. First, principles of judicial restraint counsel against reaching out and overruling Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d 505, as the parole officer in this case clearly possessed a reasonable suspicion defendant was in violation of the terms and conditions of his parole. Second, the majority’s reliance on In re Tyrell J. (1994) 8 Cal.4th 68 [32 Cal.Rptr.2d 33, 876 P.2d 519] (Tyrell J.), and extension of the rationale in that case to the adult parolee context, is mistaken.
I
Parole Agent Gordon McClaskey received an anonymous telephone call in which the caller reported defendant was using methamphetamine, a violation of the terms and conditions of his parole. The tipster also stated defendant had falsely reported a burglary to police. McClaskey was able to verify that defendant indeed had reported a burglary of his home. McClaskey concluded there was a reasonable suspicion defendant was violating his parole and so informed Officer Jay Brock, who proceeded to invoke defendant’s search condition and search a shed on defendant’s property, finding methamphetamine.
The trial court found this search was based on a reasonable suspicion defendant was violating the conditions of his parole and thus denied defendant’s suppression motion. I agree. A suspicion of wrongdoing that is “reasonable” describes a degree of certainty much less than that needed to establish probable cause, the standard needed to obtain a search warrant. (Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 534.) Although a reasonable suspicion “must... be based on articulable facts” and “rational inferences from those facts” (id. at p. 535), the lower threshold of certainty is justified by the state’s interest in monitoring the progress of the parolee. The anonymous telephone call to Agent McClaskey, coupled with the partially verified information about the burglary report, adequately supplied a reasonable suspicion that defendant was once again engaged in criminal activity.
Because there was reasonable cause supporting the decision to search defendant’s property, it is unnecessary in this case to address whether *767Officer Brock’s search of the shed would have been legally justified had McClaskey lacked reasonable cause to search. (Cone, and dis. opn. of Kennard, J., ante, at p. 764, fn. 3.) “ ‘[W]e do not reach constitutional questions unless absolutely required to do so to dispose of the matter before us.’ (People v. Williams [(1976)] 16 Cal.3d 663, 667 [128 Cal.Rptr. 888, 547 P.2d 1000]; [citations].) As the United States Supreme Court reiterated, ‘A fundamental and longstanding principle of judicial restraint requires that courts avoid reaching constitutional questions in advance of the necessity of deciding them.’ (Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Prot. Assn. (1988) 485 U.S. 439, 445 . . . .)” (Santa Clara County Local Transportation Authority v. Guardino (1995) 11 Cal.4th 220, 230-231 [45 Cal.Rptr.2d 207, 902 P.2d 225].) As I noted in People v. Bennett (1998) 17 Cal.4th 373 [70 Cal.Rptr.2d 850, 949 P.2d 947], “[p]rinciples of judicial restraint counsel that we not reach out to decide gratuitously constitutional questions of first impression. Sound jurisprudence dictates that such issues be decided only in the context of cases and controversies actually raising the issue.” (Id. at p. 393 (conc. opn. of Werdegar, J.); see also People v. Birks (1998) 19 Cal.4th 108, 139 [77 Cal.Rptr.2d 848, 960 P.2d 1073] (conc. opn. of Werdegar, J.).) I note the United States Supreme Court recently found it unnecessary to decide “whether a search of a parolee’s residence must be based on reasonable suspicion where the parolee has consented to searches as a condition of parole.” (Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott (1998) 523 U.S. __, __, fn. 3 [118 S.Ct. 2014, 2019, 141 L.Ed.2d 344, 351].)
Accordingly, I disagree that we should even address whether a reasonable suspicion is a prerequisite to invoking an adult parolee’s search condition. In any event, because the search here was supported by a reasonable suspicion that defendant was violating the terms of his parole, I concur in the majority’s decision to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal. (See conc. and dis. opn. of Kennard, J., ante, at p. 764, fn. 3.)
II
Even were I to agree the issue was properly before this court, I disagree with the majority’s unjustified abandonment of the rule set forth in Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d 505. Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th 68, on which the majority places primary reliance, involved a distinguishable situation, as even the Tyrell J. court apparently understood, having cited Burgener without giving the slightest hint that it was intending to overrule that precedent. (Tyrell J., supra, at p. 78 [citing Burgener in distinguishing adult probation search conditions from adult parole search conditions].)
Despite Tyrell 7.’s tacit endorsement of Burgener, the majority reasons that in Tyrell J., this court took a step back from the Burgener focus on the *768justification for the government intrusion, instead focusing on the fact that a juvenile probationer lacks a reasonable expectation of privacy. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 750.)
The majority mischaracterizes Burgener. That case discussed in some depth the reasonableness of an adult parolee’s expectation of privacy, explaining that “[an adult parolee’s] expectation of privacy is not diminished by the surveillance which is a concomitant of confinement in prison. As one commentator has observed: ‘[I]n most cases the life of a parolee more nearly resembles that of an ordinary citizen than that of a prisoner. The parolee is not incarcerated; he is not subjected to a prison regimen, to the rigors of prison life and the unavoidable company of sociopaths. . . . The parolee lives among people who are free to come and go when and as they wish. Except for the conditions of parole, he is one of them.’ (Note (1969) 22 Stan.L.Rev. 129, 133; see also White, The Fourth Amendment Rights of Parolees and Probationers (1969) 31 U. Pitt. L.Rev. 167, 177.) The United States Supreme Court has itself recognized that ‘the liberty of a parolee . . . includes many of the core values of unqualified liberty,’ and that his ‘condition is very different from that of confinement in a prison.’ (Morrissey v. Brewer (1972) 408 U.S. 471, 482 . . . .)” (Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 530.)
We also noted in Burgener that “[t]o say that a parolee is subject to warrantless search is not to say that his privacy interest is so diminished that random searches or searches unrelated to a proper parole supervision purpose are reasonable and constitutionally permissible.” (Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 533.) Contrary, then, to the majority’s characterization of that case, Burgener considered fully the degree to which an adult parolee’s expectation of privacy was reasonable.
The majority also opines that in Tyrell J., we struck a new balance—one that acknowledges the “level of intrusion is de minimis and the expectation of privacy greatly reduced when the subject of the search is on notice that his activities are being routinely and closely monitored.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 753.) The balance struck in that case, however, was for juvenile probationers, not adult parolees. The majority opinion does not adequately explain why, 12 years ago in Burgener, adult parolees enjoyed a greater degree of privacy than they do today.
The conditional liberty granted a minor who has committed a crime implicates different concerns from those of an adult attempting reintegration into society following a period of incarceration in state prison. The purposes and goals of juvenile proceedings are manifestly different from criminal *769proceedings involving adults. “[Although we have recently witnessed increased formalization of certain procedural aspects of the juvenile system [citations], and although the character of our adult penal structure may be evolving in any of a variety of directions, the fact remains that the juvenile system is fundamentally different from the adult penal system. Non-adversary in substance, the juvenile system is designed to place the state in the status of in loco parentis. Its underlying philosophy is that the state assumes a protective role with respect to the juveniles over whom it gains jurisdiction. ffl] . . . California decisions reflect the view that juvenile court proceedings are in the nature of guardianship proceedings [citations] and are concerned primarily with the welfare of the juvenile. [Citations.] They also instruct that adjudications of juvenile wrongdoing are not ‘criminal convictions’ [citation] and that the commitment of a ward to the Youth Authority is not a ‘sentence.’ ” (Leroy T. v. Workmen’s Comp. Appeals Bd. (1974) 12 Cal.3d 434, 439 [115 Cal.Rptr. 761, 525 P.2d 665].)
Unlike a prison sentence and subsequent period of parole imposed on the adult offender, “[t]he process of the juvenile court involves determination of the needs of the child and society, provision for guidance and treatment for the juvenile, and protection of the child from punishment and stigma. [«[[] In recent years the courts, while preserving the beneficial aspects of the juvenile process, have held that certain procedural protections must be observed in order to guarantee the fundamental fairness of juvenile proceedings. [Citations.] [In re] Gault [(1967) 387 U.S. 1 [87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527]], [In re] Winship [(1970) 397 U.S. 358 [90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368]] and the other decisions which insure such procedural fairness in juvenile proceedings do not, however, suggest a surrender of the salutary protections of the juvenile court system. As we observed in In re Dennis M. [(1969)] 70 Cal.2d 444, 456 [75 Cal.Rptr. 1, 450 P.2d 296], ‘even after Gault’ juvenile court proceedings ‘retain a sui generis character’ and are ‘conducted for the protection and benefit of the youth in question.’ ” (T.N.G. v. Superior Court (1971) 4 Cal.3d 767, 775 [94 Cal.Rptr. 813, 484 P.2d 981].)
By contrast, a period of parole placed on an adult is intended “to provide for the supervision of and surveillance of parolees, . . . and to provide educational, vocational, family and personal counseling necessary to assist parolees in the transition between imprisonment and discharge.” (Pen. Code, § 3000, subd. (a)(1).) The protective and rehabilitative goals the juvenile court intends to achieve by placing a minor on probation are thus different from the state’s goal of smoothing the parolee’s transition from a custodial to a noncustodial setting.
As the opinions in both Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d 505, and Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th 68, recognized, the conditional liberty of a juvenile probationer is distinguishable from that of an adult parolee. Today’s decision *770conflates the two, reducing the privacy rights of an adult who is attempting to rejoin the law-abiding public and rebuild his or her life, essentially to that of an inmate in prison. (See Hudson v. Palmer (1984) 468 U.S. 517 [104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393] [state may search prisoner’s cell without a warrant, probable cause or even reasonable cause].) Because the majority fails to persuade me this conclusion is required by the Fourth Amendment to the federal Constitution,1 or that the reasoning in Tyrell J. must be extended to adults, I decline to join its decision to overrule Burgener.
in
Because the parole officer in this case reasonably suspected that defendant was in violation of his parole, I concur in the majority’s decision to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal. For the reasons stated above, I otherwise respectfully dissent from the balance of the majority opinion.
MOSK, J., concurred.
The petition of appellant Rudolfo Reyes for a rehearing was denied December 2, 1998. Mosk, J., Kennard, J., and Werdegar, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 “Since the passage of Proposition 8 and its amendment of article I, section 28, subdivision (d), of the state Constitution, state and federal claims regarding the admissibility of evidence obtained by an allegedly improper search or seizure ‘are reviewed under the same standard.’ [Citations.]” (Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 76.)