United States v. Cervantes, No. 15-50459 (9th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseFor Fourth Amendment purposes, mandatory supervision is more akin to parole than probation. While defendant served the last year of his sentence on mandatory supervision, he agreed to submit to warrantless, suspicionless searches of his person, his residence, and any premises under his control. At issue was whether a warrantless, suspicionless search of a hotel room defendant rented with his girlfriend violated the Fourth Amendment. Applying the Fourth Amendment analysis applicable to parolees, the Ninth Circuit held that the officers had probable cause to believe that the hotel room constituted "premises" under defendants' control. Therefore, there was no Fourth Amendment violation and the district court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress the evidence found in his hotel room. Finally, the panel rejected defendant's contention that the district court abused its discretion by imposing a supervised release condition requiring him to submit warrantless, suspicionless search conditions. In this case, defendant had adequate notice of the condition and the district court did not abuse its discretion where the facts justified the district court's belief that defendant posed an exceptionally high risk of re-offending.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed a conviction and sentence in a case in which police officers conducted a warrantless, suspicionless search of the defendant’s hotel room pursuant to a condition of the mandatory supervision the defendant was serving for the final year of his three-year California county jail sentence. The panel held that for Fourth Amendment purposes, mandatory supervision is more akin to parole than probation, and that the search was authorized under the search condition because the officers had probable cause to believe that the hotel room constituted “premises” under the defendant’s control. Rejecting the defendant’s contention that the officers violated California’s prohibition against arbitrary, capricious, or harassing searches, the panel noted that, without something more, a suspicionless search is lawful if authorized by a parolee’s search condition. Concluding that no Fourth Amendment violation was shown, the panel held that the district court properly denied the defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence found in his hotel room. The panel held that the defendant had adequate notice of a suspicionless search condition of supervised release imposed in connection with his federal sentence, and that the facts of the case justified the district court’s belief that the condition would be necessary to mitigate the exceptionally UNITED STATES V. CERVANTES 3 high risk that the defendant would re-offend during his term of supervised release.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on September 12, 2017.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.