Court Opinion

ID: 9784400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:43:54.614018+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:53.979792
License: Public Domain

*341BAXTER, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
In United States v. Knights (2001) 534 U.S. 112 [151 L.Ed.2d 497, 122 S.Ct. 587] (Knights), the United States Supreme Court recently reminded courts to “ ‘examin[e] the totality of the circumstances’ ” when determining whether a warrantless search violates a defendant’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at p. 118.) Disregarding that admonishment, the majority holds here that if police officers do not know a defendant is a parolee when searching the defendant’s home without a warrant, the circumstance that the defendant is in fact subject to a parole term that provides legal authority for the search is absolutely irrelevant to the search’s validity. But a parole search term significantly diminishes a defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy, whether or not the searching officers know the defendant is on parole. Accordingly, I find that, whether or not the officers are aware of it, a defendant’s status as a parolee with a validly imposed parole search term warrants full consideration in assessing a search’s reasonableness under the “totality of the circumstances” test.
The precise question here is whether police officers violated the Fourth Amendment rights of defendants Kenton Michael McDaniel and Arlene Dena Sanders when they responded to a report of a loud and apparently physical domestic dispute in progress at defendants’ apartment unit and then searched the unit without a warrant and without knowing that McDaniel was on parole. The majority gives no weight to the circumstance that McDaniel’s parole terms authorized the officers to search his home when investigating the reported dispute. The majority further concludes that the officers’ lack of knowledge regarding McDaniel’s parolee status renders the search constitutionally invalid as to both defendants.
I concur in the majority’s decision that the search infringed upon defendant Sanders’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. “ ‘[Examining the totality of the circumstances’ ” (Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at p. 118), however, I conclude otherwise with respect to defendant McDaniel. Even though the officers did not know McDaniel was a parolee when they arrived at the apartment and conducted the challenged search, that circumstance did not meaningfully alter or increase McDaniel’s legitimate expectation of privacy as a parolee in that situation. I therefore would affirm McDaniel’s conviction.
I.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and provides that “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, *342supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (U.S. Const., 4th Amend.)
The rules and regulations governing the California parole system authorize any law enforcement officer to search a parolee and his or her residence at any time without a warrant. (Pen. Code, § 3052; Cal. Code Reg., tit. 15, § 2511, subd. (b)(4).) “The state has a duty not only to assess the efficacy of its rehabilitative efforts [with respect to parolees] but to protect the public, and the importance of the latter interest justifies the imposition of a warrant-less search condition.” (People v. Reyes (1998) 19 Cal.4th 743, 752 [80 Cal.Rptr.2d 734, 968 P.2d 445] (Reyes))
This case requires us to evaluate the reasonableness of a warrantless search of the home of a parolee who was subject to a validly imposed search term. “Pursuant to California Constitution, article I, section 28, subdivision (d), we review challenges to the admissibility of evidence obtained by police searches and seizures under federal constitutional standards. [Citations.]” (People v. Woods (1999) 21 Cal.4th 668, 674 [88 Cal.Rptr.2d 88, 981 P.2d 1019].) Application of those standards leads me to conclude that the challenged search did not violate McDaniel’s Fourth Amendment rights.
In Knights, supra, 534 U.S. 112, the United States Supreme Court reiterated the now familiar principle that “[t]he touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness, and the reasonableness of a search is determined ‘by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.’ [Citation.]” (Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at pp. 118-119.) Under the high court’s general Fourth Amendment approach, courts “ ‘examin[e] the totality of the circumstances’ ” to evaluate whether a particular warrantless search was reasonable. (Id. at p. 118.)
Here, the factual circumstances surrounding the challenged search are undisputed. Defendant McDaniel was a parolee. He was subject to a lawfully imposed parole search term that put him on notice that any law enforcement officer might search his person and his residence at any time without a warrant. While in their apartment, defendants McDaniel and Sanders engaged in a loud fight that led neighbors to call the police. When police officers arrived and knocked on the door, someone deadbolted the door, refusing them entry. Eventually Sanders opened the door and allowed the officers inside. At that point, the officers saw McDaniel hide something metallic behind a couch cushion. The officers also observed that Sanders appeared to have been in a physical altercation, with a fresh abrasion on her face. Sanders and McDaniel soon became belligerent and combative with the officers. McDaniel demanded that they leave the apartment, even though his parolee status entitled *343the officers to stay and to search him and his residence without a warrant. After handcuffing both defendants, the officers made a protective sweep of the other rooms of the apartment to check for third persons. During this sweep, the officers saw a boot containing drug contraband in plain view in an open closet of one of the bedrooms. After seeing the boot, the officers contacted the police department and learned that McDaniel was on parole and subject to a search term. They requested assistance and conducted a parole search of the apartment. The contraband was seized, and a pair of scissors was recovered from between the couch cushions.
Defendants do not challenge the validity of the officers’ entry into the apartment, but argue it was unlawful for the officers to search the apartment after handcuffing them. The majority agrees with defendants. Assuming the officers’ protective sweep was, as the Court of Appeal found, unlawful under Maryland v. Buie (1990) 494 U.S. 325 [108 L.Ed.2d 276, 110 S.Ct. 1093],1 the majority concludes it was not justified as a parole search because the officers did not know when they made the sweep that McDaniel was on parole. I disagree. Given the totality of the circumstances surrounding the challenged search, I find it did not violate the parolee’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy. My reasons are as follows.
Following Knights’s totality-of-the-circumstances analysis, I first examine the degree to which the search intruded on the parolee’s reasonable expectation of privacy. On this score, it is settled that an individual’s “ ‘capacity to claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment depends . . . upon whether the person who claims the protection of the Amendment has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place.’ ” (Minnesota v. Carter (1998) 525 U.S. 83, 88 [142 L.Ed.2d 373, 119 S.Ct. 469].) For a person to have a legitimate expectation of privacy, he or she must have manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in the object of the challenged search, and that expectation must be one society recognizes as reasonable. (California v. Ciraolo (1986) 476 U.S. 207, 211 [90 L.Ed.2d 210, 106 S.Ct. 1809]; People v. Robles (2000) 23 Cal.4th 789, 795 [97 Cal.Rptr.2d 914, 3 P.3d 311]; In re Tyrell J. (1994) 8 Cal.4th 68, 83 [32 Cal.Rptr.2d 33, 876 P.2d 519].)
Here, McDaniel was subject to a lawfully imposed search term that expressly applied both to his person and to his residence. There appears no reason to doubt that McDaniel was unambiguously informed of this term. The existence of this search term is, as the United States Supreme Court puts it, a “salient circumstance” in the analysis. (Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at p. 118 [describing a probation search condition as a “salient circumstance”].) But whatever subjective expectation of privacy McDaniel may have had with *344respect to the illegal drugs in his apartment bedroom, the parole search term significantly diminished his reasonable expectation of privacy in the same way that a search condition significantly diminishes a probationer’s reasonable expectation of privacy. (See id. at pp. 119-120.)
Knights next calls for assessing the degree to which a warrantless search of a parolee is “ ‘needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.’ ” (Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at p. 119.) Plainly, the governmental interests at stake here are legitimate and well established. “As a convicted felon still subject to the Department of Corrections, a parolee has conditional freedom—granted for the specific purpose of monitoring his transition from inmate to free citizen. The state has a duty not only to assess the efficacy of its rehabilitative efforts but to protect the public, and the importance of the latter interest justifies the imposition of a warrantless search condition.” (Reyes, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 752.) The state’s requirement of search terms for parolees “is triggered by [the parolee’s] own conduct. The existence of this triggering event—the crime which results in conviction . . . —creates the compelling need for government intervention and diminishes any reasonable expectation of privacy.” (Ibid.)
The high court similarly recognizes that a state’s “interest in apprehending violators of the criminal law, thereby protecting potential victims of criminal enterprise, may therefore justifiably focus on probationers in a way that it does not on the ordinary citizen.” (Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at p. 121, italics added.) A parolee such as McDaniel, however, presents a much more serious risk to society than a probationer, in that a parolee is not placed on probation but is sent to prison, either because of the seriousness of his or her crimes or because of criminal recidivism that warrants a state prison sentence. A fortiori, a state’s interest in protecting the public is even greater in the case of parolees, who more so than probationers have demonstrated a “proclivity for anti-social criminal, and often violent, conduct” and an inability “to control and conform their behavior to the legitimate standards of society by the normal impulses of self-restraint.” (Hudson v. Palmer (1984) 468 U.S. 517, 526 [82 L.Ed.2d 393, 104 S.Ct. 3194] [describing prisoners].)
Relying on New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) 469 U.S. 325, 337-338 [83 L.Ed.2d 720, 105 S.Ct. 733], and other high court authority, Reyes observed there are two additional factors relevant to determining whether a challenged intrusion is justified: the necessity for the intrusion, and the procedure used in conducting the search. (Reyes, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 751.) In our case, both of these factors support the reasonableness of the search as to the parolee. As noted, in this case the police officers did not decide randomly or arbitrarily to investigate an individual and search his house without justification, hoping to find evidence of criminal activity. Rather, the parolee’s own conduct— *345participating in an altercation that caused concerned neighbors to call police—prompted the police to come to the parolee’s apartment. Also, what the officers saw in plain view—a fresh abrasion on Sanders’s face, McDaniel’s attempt to hide something metallic behind a couch cushion, and both defendants’ becoming belligerent and combative toward them—prompted them to handcuff both defendants and to make a protective sweep of the residence. Although the officers evidently misjudged the propriety of a protective sweep in the situation before them, the procedure they employed was in fact no more invasive or violative of McDaniel’s privacy than what he could reasonably expect, given his parole search term and his conduct. Indeed, as a parolee involved in a loud, and apparently physical, domestic dispute, McDaniel should fully have expected police intervention and invocation of his parole search term. The fact that the searching officers did not know of the parole term at the outset of their involvement did not, from McDaniel’s perspective, meaningfully alter or increase any reasonable expectation of privacy he may have had as a parolee in those circumstances.
II.
Because our decisions and those of the high court uniformly instruct courts to examine the totality of the circumstances when evaluating the reasonableness of a warrantless search, it is wrong as a matter of law for the majority to regard only one factor as controlling, i.e., the searching officers’ lack of knowledge that McDaniel was a parolee. (See Ohio v. Robinette (1996) 519 U.S. 33, 39 [136 L.Ed.2d 347, 117 S.Ct. 417] [“we have consistently eschewed bright-line rules, instead emphasizing the fact-specific nature of the reasonableness inquiry”].)
While lack of knowledge certainly is significant, the search here was reasonable in light of all the following circumstances: (1) when the officers conducted the search, McDaniel was subject to a parole search term that provided legal authority and a valid justification for the search; (2) McDaniel’s expectation of privacy in his home was greatly reduced due to his parolee status and parole search term; (3) the officers did not go to defendants’ apartment arbitrarily or capriciously or for purposes of harassing the occupants; rather, defendants’ engagement in a loud and apparently physical fight, their belligerence, and McDaniel’s suspicious hiding of a metallic object, prompted the officers’ involvement and actions; (4) the officers acted with what they believed was proper justification in making the protective sweep; (5) although, given their grasp of the situation, the officers apparently misjudged the propriety of a protective sweep, that sweep was in fact not intrusive of McDaniel’s privacy expectations, because his parole terms expressly authorized it, and he could reasonably have expected it, given the circumstances that brought the officers to his door; and (6) the government’s *346significant interests in deterring parolees from criminal activity and protecting the public from their crimes would be advanced by our finding the search reasonable as to McDaniel and allowing admission of the drug contraband evidence at his criminal trial.
The majority properly acknowledges that a search’s validity does not turn on the individual officers’ actual motivations. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 334.) But by evaluating the search’s reasonableness with reference to only those “circumstances known to the officer when the search is conducted” (ibid., italics added), the majority fails to “ ‘examin[e] the totality of the circumstances’ ” (Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at p. 118). In so doing, the majority effectively rejects the high court’s determination that a lawfully imposed search term “significantly diminish[es]” one’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” (id. at p. 120) and is “a salient circumstance” in the analysis (id. at p. 118).
Moreover, the majority is demonstrably wrong in concluding that actual circumstances may never validate a search where the facts known or otherwise available to the searching officer would not have justified a person of reasonable caution in the belief that a search was appropriate. In a consensual search, for instance, it generally is accepted that the facts available to the officer when conducting a search must cause the officer to have a reasonable belief that a third party who consents has authority over the premises to be searched. But if the facts do not give rise to such reasonable belief, then the officer’s “warrantless entry without further inquiry is unlawful unless authority actually exists.” (Illinois v. Rodriguez (1990) 497 U.S. 177, 188-189 [111 L.Ed.2d 148, 110 S.Ct. 2793], italics added.) Hence, by excluding consideration of the circumstance that a lawful basis for the search (i.e., the parole search term) existed at the time of the officers’ protective sweep, the majority disregards this established Fourth Amendment principle.
The majority’s rule leads to absurd consequences, as the following two hypothetical scenarios illustrate.
First, let us assume facts very similar to those here. Police officers respond to a report of a loud fight between X and Y at their apartment. The officers’ arrival stops the fight, but both X and Y begin to act belligerently toward the officers, who handcuff them. Rather than conducting a protective sweep, the officers immediately call the police department. They are told, erroneously, that neither disputant is a probationer, but that Y is a parolee. Relying on this incorrect information, the officers search the apartment unit and find illegal drugs, which they seize, in Y’s open closet. A day later, the officers discover that, in fact, Y’s parole had long since expired, but he currently is on probation subject to a search condition. Under these circumstances, the *347officers’ good faith reliance on the outdated and erroneous parole status information would not validate the search of Y’s closet (People v. Willis (2002) 28 Cal.4th 22 [120 Cal.Rptr.2d 105, 46 P.3d 898]), and according to the majority’s analysis, the search would have intruded unreasonably upon Y’s Fourth Amendment rights because, notwithstanding Y’s significantly diminished expectation of privacy as a probationer, the officers did not know that Y was on probation (in fact, they were led to believe that probation was not an issue), and they consequently acted without a probation-related purpose.
Second, let us assume that police officers respond to a report of a loud fight between X and Y at a house Y owns. Again, the officers’ arrival stops the fight, but both X and Y begin to act belligerently toward the officers, who handcuff them. The officers immediately call the police department and are told, again erroneously, that neither disputant is a probationer, but that Y is a parolee. Relying on this incorrect information, the officers search the house and find firearms, which they seize, in one of the bedrooms. After arresting Y, the officers discover that Y’s parole had long since expired, but that he in fact had escaped from prison after a later conviction. As in the previous hypothetical, the officers’ good faith reliance on the erroneous parole status information does not validate the search of the bedroom. (People v. Willis, supra, 28 Cal.4th 22.) But even though Y had virtually no reasonable expectation of privacy as a prison escapee, the majority’s analysis would deem the search unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because the officers did not know of Y’s status as an escapee when they conducted the search. Neither of these results makes any logical sense.
As indicated, Knights, supra, 534 U.S. 112, and Illinois v. Rodriguez, supra, 497 U.S. 177, both support my position that courts may properly consider facts not available to an officer in evaluating the reasonableness of a warrantless search. Apart from these two decisions, however, the other authorities the majority cites largely are inapposite (see maj. opn., ante, decisions cited at p. 334), for none considered the reasonableness of a search pertaining to a defendant whose expectation of privacy had been drastically reduced due to a lawfully imposed search term or search condition.
Moreover, in proposing to find constitutional violations as to both defendants here, the majority unduly emphasizes the fact that a residence is involved and fails to heed the controlling principle that “the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.” (Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 351 [19 L.Ed.2d 576, 88 S.Ct. 507].) That a search may be deemed valid as to one occupant of a residence but invalid as to another comports fully with the high court’s teaching that “the legitimacy of certain privacy expectations *348vis-á-vis the State may depend upon the individual’s legal relationship with the State.” (Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton (1995) 515 U.S. 646, 654 [132 L.Ed.2d 564, 115 S.Ct. 2386].) And as this court has itself recognized, “[t]hat persons under the same roof may legitimately harbor differing expectations of privacy is consistent with the principle that one’s ability to claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment depends upon the reasonableness of his or her individual expectations.” (People v. Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 798; accord, People v. Hernandez (1996) 218 A.D.2d 167 [639 N.Y.S.2d 423, 426-427] [suppression of evidence found inappropriate in case against a prison escapee, but appropriate in case against the escapee’s homeowner brother].) Therefore, even though a parolee’s home, like anyone else’s, is protected by the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that searches be reasonable (see Griffin v. Wisconsin (1987) 483 U.S. 868, 873 [97 L.Ed.2d 709, 107 S.Ct. 3164] [concluding the same in the context of probationers]), parolees remain properly subject to specific constraints on their privacy that would not be constitutional if applied to their cohabitants and the public at large (see id. at p. 875).
Finally, relying on People v. Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th 789, the majority erroneously concludes that suppressing the evidence here as to the parolee, in addition to the nonparolee cohabitant, is necessary to deter police misconduct. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 335.) Applying the suppression sanction in the nonparolee’s case is appropriate, of course, because her Fourth Amendment privacy interests were in fact violated. (People v. Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at pp. 798-800.) But the majority unjustifiably extends the suppression sanction for the benefit of the parolee, whose constitutional privacy interests were not violated, in order to “decrease the chance that a person living with a probationer or parolee would be the victim of an unlawful search.” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 798-800.) That is just plain wrong and gives the parolee a huge and undeserved windfall. (Rakas v. Illinois (1978) 439 U.S. 128, 134 [58 L.Ed.2d 387, 99 S.Ct. 421] [“it is proper to permit only defendants whose Fourth Amendment rights have been violated to benefit from the [exclusionary] rule’s protections”].) Nothing in People v. Robles or any other authority supports such a novel and disproportional approach to deterring potential police misconduct.
III.
In sum, McDaniel’s parolee status and the search term to which he was subject severely diminished any reasonable expectation of privacy McDaniel may have had in his home and provided legal authority for the challenged search. Although the police officers initially knew nothing of McDaniel’s parolee status, their sweep search was in actuality no more intrusive of McDaniel’s privacy than what his parole terms expressly authorized. Finally, *349even though the officers may have misjudged the propriety of a protective "sweep in the situation facing them, no decision to conduct a search should have surprised McDaniel, in light of his participation in the events that brought the officers to his door.
Given the totality of these circumstances, I find the challenged search did not violate McDaniel’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Moreover, finding the search reasonable in circumstances such as these—where a parolee’s search term provides a legal basis for a warrantless search when the parolee’s involvement in an altercation and criminal wrongdoing is at issue—would advance the significant governmental interests in deterring parolees from criminal activity and protecting the public from their crimes.
I would affirm defendant McDaniel’s conviction.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied October 22, 2003, and the opinion was modified to read as presented above. Brown, J., did not participate therein. Baxter, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 The majority expresses no view regarding this aspect of the Court of Appeal’s analysis (maj. opn., ante, at p. 324, fn. 2), and neither do I.