Court Opinion

ID: 9587561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:23:47.393727+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:27.232848
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J.
, Dissenting.—In this case, a police officer, acting without probable cause, conducted a warrantless search of a minor that resulted in the discovery of contraband. The minor was on probation and subject to a search condition, of which the officer was unaware at the time of the search. To determine the admissibility of the fruits of the search, this court must address two questions: First, may the prosecution rely on the probation search condition as justification for the search when the searching officer did not know of the condition’s existence? Second, assuming the prosecution may rely on the search condition, must it nevertheless show that the searching officer had a “reasonable suspicion” that the minor was in violation of the law or of the terms of probation?
The majority holds that the prosecution may rely on the minor’s search condition, and that the searching officer, even if ignorant of the search condition, need not have a reasonable suspicion in order to conduct the search. I cannot agree to this startling departure from settled principles underlying the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures ....’’ Instead of magnifying “ ‘the moral and educative force of the law,’ ” which seeks, over time, to inculcate “ ‘fourth amendment ideals into the value system or norms of behavior of law enforcement agencies’ ’’ (United States v. Peltier (1975) 422 U.S. 531, 555 [45 L.Ed.2d 374, 392, 95 S.Ct. 2313] (dis. opn. of Brennan, J.), today’s decision erodes the credibility of the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.
I
In May 1991, the Fresno County Superior Court declared Tyrell J. (the minor) to be a ward of the juvenile court as a result of his commission of a *91battery. The court placed the minor on probation, on condition, among others, that he “[s]ubmit to a search of . . . person and property, with or without a warrant, by any law enforcement officer, probation officer or school official.”
On October 3,1991, the minor and some friends were detained by a police officer at a high school football game in Fresno. The officer pulled away a heavy coat worn by one of the minor’s friends and found a knife. Seeing the minor adjust the crotch of his pants several times, the officer conducted a pat-search and felt a soft object. The item proved to be a baggie of marijuana, which he seized. At the time, the officer did not know that the minor was on probation and was subject to a search condition.
Charged in juvenile court with possession of marijuana for sale, the minor moved to suppress the marijuana as the fruit of an illegal search and seizure. The prosecution did not contend that the officer had probable cause to search, but argued that the search was valid because of the minor’s probation search condition. The court denied the suppression motion, found the charge of possession of marijuana for sale to be true, and declared the minor to be a ward of the court. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the search condition could not be used to justify the search of the minor, because the searching officer did not know of its existence.
II
As I mentioned at the outset, the first issue this court must address is whether the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution permits the prosecution to rely on a minor’s probation search condition to uphold the legality of a search by an officer who did not know of the condition. As the majority recognizes, analysis of this issue must begin with Griffin v. Wisconsin (1987) 483 U.S. 868 [97 L.Ed.2d 709, 107 S.Ct. 3164], the only case in which the United States Supreme Court has addressed the legality of probation search conditions. In Griffin, the defendant’s search condition allowed the probation officer to conduct a warrantless search so long as there was “reasonable cause” to believe that the defendant (an adult) possessed contraband. Relying on this condition, a closely divided court upheld, by a five-to-four margin, the validity of a warrantless search of the defendant’s apartment by a probation officer. The court reasoned that the government’s “special needs” in operating a probation system, such as closely monitoring the probationer’s compliance with the conditions of probation to ensure that probation “serves as a period of genuine rehabilitation and that the community is not harmed by the probationer’s being at large,” permitted dispensation with the requirements of a warrant and probable cause when conducting searches of probationers. (Id. at pp. 873-878 [97 L.Ed.2d at pp. 717-721].)
*92In this case, the majority concedes that Griffin v. Wisconsin, supra, 483 U.S. 868, does not control the outcome of this case. The search the high court upheld in Griffin differs from the search in this case in two respects. First, here the search was conducted not by a probation officer, but by a police officer. Second, the police officer did not know of the probationer’s search condition. These differences are significant, because in Griffin the United States Supreme Court repeatedly stressed that the search was conducted by a probation officer, whose role was viewed as distinctively different from that of a police officer. In holding that the probation officer did not need to obtain a warrant before conducting the search, the court said: “Although a probation officer is not an impartial magistrate, neither is he the police officer who normally conducts searches against the ordinary citizen. He is an employee of the State Department of Health and Social Services who, while assuredly charged with protecting the public interest, is also supposed to have in mind the welfare of the probationer. ... In such a setting, we think it reasonable to dispense with the warrant requirement.” (Id. at pp. 876-877 [97 L.Ed.2d at p. 719].) At a later point, in holding that the probation officer did not need probable cause to conduct the search, the court explained: “[W]e deal with a situation in which there is an ongoing supervisory relationship—and one that is not, or at least not entirely, adversarial—between the object of the search and the decisionmaker.” (Id. at p. 879 [97 L.Ed.2d at p. 721].)
These statements by the high court in Griffin v. Wisconsin, supra, 483 U.S. 868, strongly imply that when, as here, a search is conducted not by a probation officer but by a police officer who does not even know of the suspect’s probationary status, the eventual discovery that the terms of probation included a search condition may not be used to uphold the validity of the search. Unlike a probation officer, a police officer who conducts such a search does not have “the welfare of the probationer” in mind and has no “ongoing supervisory relationship” with the probationer. Hence, the “special needs” of the probation system that the high court articulated in Griffin are inapplicable here. A close look at the relevant decisions by the federal circuits and the courts of other states supports this conclusion.
My research has not disclosed, nor has the majority cited, any decision, whether from a federal or a sister-state court, that has relied on a search condition to uphold a search by an officer who did not know of the condition’s existence. Indeed, federal cases have limited the prosecution’s use of search conditions to a far greater extent, holding that even when the searching police officer knows of the existence of a search condition, reliance on the condition is improper when the officer acted in the capacity of an agent of the police, and the search was conducted for purposes of law *93enforcement, rather than for purposes related to probation or parole. (U.S. v. Harper (9th Cir. 1991) 928 F.2d 894, 897; U.S. v. Butcher (9th Cir. 1991) 926 F.2d 811, 815; U.S. v. Giannetta (1st Cir. 1990) 909 F.2d 571, 581; U.S. v. Cardona (1st Cir. 1990) 903 F.2d 60, 63; U.S. v. Richardson (9th Cir. 1988) 849 F.2d 439, 441; United States v. Merchant (9th Cir. 1985) 760 F.2d 963, 969; United States v. Jarrad (9th Cir. 1985) 754 F.2d 1451, 1454; Owens v. Kelley (5th Cir. 1982) 681 F.2d 1362, 1369.) That view is shared by the state courts that have addressed the issue. (Com. v. Pickron (1993) 535 Pa. 241 [634 A.2d 1093, 1097]; State v. Johnson (Utah 1987) 748 P.2d 1069,1072]; State v. Flakes (1987) 140 Wis.2d 411 [410 N.W.2d 614, 620]; State ex rel. Corgan v. King (Okla.Ct.App. 1994) 868 P.2d 743, 747; People v. Candelaria (1978) 63 A.D.2d 85, 90 [406 N.Y.S.2d 783]; see also State v. Smith (1992) 117 Ore.App. 473 [844 P.2d 276] [under state law, probation search conditions may only authorize searches by probation officers, not police].)
Legal commentators too support that view. As the leading treatise on probation and parole explains: “[A] court. . . must guard against subterfuge searches. A police officer lacking probable cause should not be able to ask a parole or probation caseworker to conduct a search pursuant to the latter’s general monitoring and supervisory authority.” (Cohen & Gobert, The Law of Probation and Parole (1983) § 8.04, p. 382.) In this case, the police officer conducting the search did not even purport to invoke the monitoring and supervisory authority of the minor’s probation officer, for the police officer did not know that the minor was on probation. “[Q]uite obviously there is no rational basis upon which to uphold otherwise illegal police searches of persons only later determined to be on probation or parole.” (4 La Fave, Search & Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment (2d ed. 1987) § 10.10(e), pp. 154-155.)
I now turn to a discussion of this court’s prior decisions that prohibited the prosecution from relying on the parole authority’s right to search a parolee to uphold the legality of a search when the searching police officer had no knowledge that the person searched was a parolee.
This court first discussed the issue, albeit briefly, in People v. Gallegos (1964) 62 Cal.2d 176 [41 Cal.Rptr. 590, 397 P.2d 174]. In that case, police officers conducted a warrantless search of the defendant’s house; during the search, the defendant mentioned that he was on parole. In concluding that the prosecution could not rely on the defendant’s parole status as justification for the search, we said: “[T]he record does not disclose and no claim is made that [the defendant] was detained as a possible parole violator or that his premises were searched for that reason. Although under ordinary circumstances a parolee’s place of residence may be searched prior to an arrest *94. . . , in the instant case the status of the defendant as a parolee was not relied upon by the arresting officer. Hence, lacking evidence in this regard, the search of defendant’s premises which immediately followed the arrest, and the results thereof, could not be utilized in justification of the arrest.” (Id. at p. 178, citations omitted; see also People v. Gastelum (1965) 237 Cal.App.2d 205, 207 [46 Cal.Rptr. 743] [“[W]hen law enforcement officers are unaware of a defendant’s parole status the fact of parole . . . cannot justify an otherwise unlawful search.”].)
We discussed the issue at greater length in In re Martinez (1970) 1 Cal.3d 641 [83 Cal.Rptr. 382, 463 P.2d 734]. There, the Adult Authority (now Board of Prison Terms) revoked the defendant’s parole based on evidence seized by police officers who did not know that the defendant was on parole. Although we held that the evidence seized need not be excluded from a parole revocation proceeding because the exclusionary rule is inapplicable to such proceedings, we also explained that the defendant’s status as a parolee could not be relied upon to justify the search in a new criminal case based on the illegally seized evidence. We said: “In the instant case regular police officers undertook the search pursuant to their general law enforcement duties; the officers, at the time of the search, did not even know of defendant’s parole status. . . . Under these circumstances the officers cannot undertake a search without probable cause and then later seek to justify their actions by relying on the defendant’s parole status, a status of which they were unaware at the time of their search.” (Id. at p. 646.)
When this court rendered its decisions in People v. Gallegos, supra, 62 Cal.2d 176, and In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d 641, we did not refer to the parolees in those cases as having parole search conditions. At that time, express search conditions were rarely used with parole grants because, under the doctrine of “custodia legis,” the status of parolee was deemed sufficient in itself to justify excepting searches by parole authorities from the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. (See People v. Burgener (1986) 41 Cal.3d 505, 529-530 [224 Cal.Rptr. 112, 714 P.2d 1251]; People v. Gastelum (1965) 237 Cal.App.2d 205, 208 [46 Cal.Rptr. 743].) Under this view, every grant of parole included an implied search condition, and an officer’s knowledge of parole status was equivalent to knowledge of a parole search condition.
Unless they can be distinguished from the situation here, this court’s decisions in People v. Gallegos, supra, 62 Cal.2d 176, and In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d 641, are dispositive of the case at hand: they establish a rule, now decades old, that the prosecution may not rely on a defendant’s express or implied search condition when the police officer conducting the search did not know of its existence.
*95In both People v. Gallegos, supra, 62 Cal.2d 176, and In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d 641, the person searched was an adult who was on parole. Here, on the other hand, the search involved a juvenile who was on probation. As I shall explain, however, these distinctions are inconsequential, and therefore this court’s prior decisions in Gallegos and In re Martinez should govern this case.
Most courts have found no significant differences, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, between probation search conditions and parole search conditions. (See, e.g., U.S. v. Hill (3d Cir. 1992) 967 F.2d 902, 909; U.S. v. Davis (9th Cir. 1991) 932 F.2d 752, 758; U.S. v. Harper, supra, 928 F.2d at p. 896, fn. 1.)1 In People v. Bravo (1987) 43 Cal.3d 600 [238 Cal.Rptr. 282, 738 P.2d 336], however, this court perceived an important difference between adult parolees who have served a determinate term and adult probationers, permitting a greater intrusion on the latter’s Fourth Amendment rights. The court explained: “A probationer, unlike a parolee, consents to the waiver of his Fourth Amendment rights in exchange for the opportunity to avoid service of a state prison term. Probation is not a right, but a privilege. ‘If the defendant considers the conditions of probation more harsh than the sentence the court would otherwise impose, he has the right to refuse probation and undergo the sentence.’ ” (People v. Bravo, supra, 43 Cal.3d at p. 608, quoting In re Bushman (1970) 1 Cal.3d 767, 776 [83 Cal.Rptr. 375, 463 P.2d 727].) Because the waiver of Fourth Amendment rights is voluntary, the Bravo court held, a probationer may consent to a more substantial waiver of Fourth Amendment rights than may be involuntarily imposed on a parolee.2
Although voluntarily accepted search conditions may result in a broader Fourth Amendment waiver than conditions involuntarily imposed, even a voluntarily accepted search condition does not permit a search by an officer ignorant of that condition. This court has so determined in People v. Gallegos, supra, 62 Cal.2d 176, and In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d 641. The suspects searched in those cases were parolees, but they could have rejected the grants of parole because they had been sentenced under the indeterminate sentencing law. (Compare In re Schoengarth (1967) 66 Cal.2d 295, 301 [57 Cal.Rptr. 600, 425 P.2d 200] [prisoner under indeterminate sentencing law *96not required to accept parole] with People v. Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d 505, 529 [after determinate term prisoner may not reject release on parole].) Even when the person searched has voluntarily accepted an express or implied search condition, that condition cannot justify a warrantless search by an officer engaged in general law enforcement duties who has no knowledge of the search condition.
Nor is it of any significance that, unlike People v. Gallegos, supra, 62 Cal.2d 176, and In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d 641, this case involves a search condition imposed on a minor rather than an adult. The purposes underlying search conditions imposed for juvenile probationers, as described by the majority, are indistinguishable from those justifying the imposition of search conditions on adult parolees. The majority explains the purposes underlying search conditions for juvenile probationers as follows: “To better effectuate the rehabilitation of the juvenile, the condition of probation permitting police (and others) to conduct warrantless searches is imposed . . . to serve the important goal of deterring future misconduct. A juvenile probationer must thus assume every law enforcement officer might stop and search him [or her] at any moment.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 87, italics added.) This statement is equally true if one substitutes the words “adult” and “parole” for “juvenile” and “probation,” so that the sentence instead reads: “To better effectuate the rehabilitation of the [adult,] the condition of [parole] permitting police (and others) to conduct warrantless searches is imposed ... to serve the important goal of deterring future misconduct. An [adult parolee] must thus assume every law enforcement officer might stop and search him [or her] at any moment.”
Thus, there are no significant differences, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, between search conditions imposed upon adult parolees and those imposed upon juvenile probationers. Therefore, our conclusion in People v. Gallegos, supra, 62 Cal.2d 176, and In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d 641, that a search may not be justified by a parole search condition of which the searching officer is unaware, should be dispositive of this case.
The majority, however, states that it is “not persuaded” by People v. Gallegos, supra, 62 Cal.2d 176, and In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d 641. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 88.) The majority reasons that a probationary search condition eviscerates a minor’s reasonable expectation of privacy, thereby rendering the searching officer’s knowledge of the search condition “irrelevant.” Because, as a result of the search condition in this case, the minor knew that he could be searched by a police officer at any time, the majority concludes that he had no privacy right that was violated by the officer who searched him.
*97The majority’s reasoning is unsound. Under the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Griffin v. Wisconsin, supra, 483 U.S. 868, “involuntary” search conditions such as the one imposed on the minor in this case are permitted only because the probation system’s special supervisory needs allow “a degree of impingement upon privacy that would not be constitutional if applied to the public at large.” (Id. at p. 875 [97 L.Ed.2d at p. 718].) But here the search was not conducted to satisfy those needs, for the searching officer did not know that the minor was on probation when he conducted the search. “Clearly, in order to have the requisite reason related to the ‘rehabilitative and reformative purposes of probation,’ the searching officer must have knowledge that the defendant is indeed on probation. In the absence of such knowledge, the objective of the search is simply unrelated to any proper probationary purpose.” (In re Marcellus L. (1991) 229 Cal.App.3d 134, 147 [279 Cal.Rptr. 901] (dis. opn. of Reardon, J.).)
If the search condition imposed on the minor here were to authorize searches wholly unrelated to the minor’s probationary status, then the search condition would be constitutionally invalid. We need not, however, invalidate the minor’s search condition, because we may construe the condition more narrowly, in a commonsense manner that does not transgress constitutional boundaries. In my view, the search condition should be read as authorizing only those searches that are conducted by police and probation officers who knowingly invoke its terms. Construed in this fashion, the search condition does not violate the Fourth Amendment; nor does it destroy the minor’s reasonable expectation of privacy, except to the extent that it allows a search by officers who know of his probationary status and of the search condition. In this case, the officer who conducted the search was unaware that the minor was on probation and subject to a search condition. Therefore, the prosecution should not be permitted to rely on the condition to validate the otherwise unlawful search.
The majority asserts that a rule prohibiting officers from relying on search conditions of which they have no knowledge “would be inconsistent with the special needs of the juvenile probation scheme.” (Maj. opn., ante, pp. 86-87.) The purpose of the search condition, according to the majority, is to deter future misconduct, because a juvenile subject to the search condition must assume that any law enforcement officer might stop and search the juvenile at any moment. This deterrent effect, the majority claims, would be “severely eroded” if police officers are required “to learn the names and memorize the faces” of the juveniles on probation in their jurisdiction. (Ibid.) But the majority does not explain how the deterrent effect will be “severely eroded.” To the extent that a minor subject to a probationary search condition is deterred from engaging in criminal activity because of the fear of *98being searched by any police officer at any time, such fear and deterrence will exist regardless of whether police officers must “learn the names and memorize the faces" of juvenile probationers.
More important, the majority’s decision does not safeguard the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. (U.S. Const., 4th Amend.; Cal. Const, art. I, § 13.) Today’s holding offers police officers an incentive to search any juvenile despite the lack of probable cause and a warrant, for if it later turns out that the juvenile has a probation search condition, the fruits of the search will be admissible in court. Thus, the majority rule encourages police to “search first and ask questions later.” A policy more at odds with the purpose underlying the Fourth Amendment would be difficult to imagine.
Ill
Almost as an afterthought, the majority resolves a second important issue concerning the effect of search conditions imposed on juveniles in criminal cases: May an officer search a minor subject to such a condition without any cause whatever, so long as the search is not conducted for purposes of harassment? Or must the searching officer have at least a “reasonable suspicion” (which need not amount to probable cause) that the minor has violated the law or a condition of probation?
This issue need not be resolved here, because the searching officer unquestionably had a reasonable suspicion that the minor had violated the law: the officer had just discovered that the minor’s friend was carrying a concealed weapon, and the minor’s gestures suggested that he, too, might be concealing a weapon on his person. Nevertheless, the majority chooses to address the issue, and proceeds to decide it incorrectly, concluding that an officer may search a minor subject to a probation search condition even if lacking a reasonable suspicion that the minor has violated the law or any condition of the minor’s probation. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 78.) The majority’s conclusion is inconsistent with our own decisions.
In People v. Burgener (1986) 41 Cal.3d 505 [224 Cal.Rptr. 112, 714 P.2d 1251], this court held that a warrantless search of an adult parolee pursuant to a search condition is invalid in the absence of a “reasonable suspicion” that the parolee is engaged in conduct that violates the parole. (Id. at p. 535.) The court observed: “The justification for exempting parole searches from the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment is that these searches are necessary for effective parole supervision. If a search is to have a parole supervision purpose therefore it must be based on information which leads *99the parole agent who conducts or authorizes the search to believe that the parolee has violated the law or another condition of his parole, or is planning to do so.” (Id. at p. 533.) The reasonable suspicion, of course, must be based on objective, articulable facts. (Id. at p. 535.)
As I discussed earlier (ante, p. 95), there are no significant differences, for Fourth Amendment purposes, between search conditions imposed on adult parolees and those imposed on juvenile probationers. Thus, the rule this court set forth in People v. Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d 600, that parolees can be searched only when there is a reasonable suspicion that they have violated the law, is equally applicable to juvenile probationers.
To reach a contrary conclusion, the majority cites People v. Bravo, supra, 43 Cal.3d 600, 609. The majority does not even attempt to explain why Bravo is dispositive of this issue, perhaps because it cannot do so. As previously explained (ante, p. 95), Bravo’s rule that adult probationers may be searched without reasonable cause is based on the premise that they consented to the search. Because juveniles on probation do not voluntarily consent to waive their Fourth Amendment rights {ante, p. 95), Bravo is inapplicable, and the Fourth Amendment rights of juveniles can be restricted to no greater degree than the rights of adult parolees. Just as the search of an adult parolee pursuant to a search condition must be based on reasonable suspicion (People v. Burgener, supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 533), so must the search of a juvenile probationer who is subject to a search condition.
Conclusion
The majority’s principal holding—that to justify the validity of a warrant-less search of a juvenile, the prosecution may rely on a minor’s probation search condition of which the searching officer is completely ignorant—is contrary to the unanimous views of the federal bench, the courts of other states, the legal commentators that have addressed this issue, and this court’s own decisions. By upholding an otherwise illegal search because of a fact (the existence of the search condition) unknown to the officer conducting the search, the majority encourages police officers to embark on a practice of “search first and ask questions later.” This is precisely the kind of conduct that the exclusionary rule seeks to deter.
I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeal.
Mosk, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied October 20, 1994, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above.

At least one court has suggested that the Fourth Amendment rights of individuals on parole may be limited to a greater extent than those on probation. (U.S. v. Cardona, supra, 903 F.2d at p. 63.) In this case, the majority does the opposite.

In People v. Bravo, supra, 43 Cal.3d 600, this court upheld the legality of a search of an adult probationer that was conducted by a police officer who knew that the probationer was subject to a search condition. Bravo was filed only two weeks after the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Griffin v. Wisconsin, supra, 483 U.S. 868; yet, it did not discuss or even cite Griffin.