In United States v. Cervantes, --- F.3d ---, No. 15-50459 (9th Cir. 2017), the defendant appealed from his conviction and sentence for unlawfully possessing counterfeit currency and images of counterfeit currency, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 472 and 474.
He argued the police who found the currency violated his Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a warrantless, suspicionless search of his hotel room. That search was conducted pursuant to a condition of his mandatory supervision, which the defendant was serving for the final year of his three-year California county jail sentence.
In rejecting the defendant's argument (and affirming the denial of his suppression motion), the Court determined that, for Fourth Amendment purposes, mandatory supervision is more akin to parole than probation, and that the search was authorized under the state-court imposed search condition.
The defendant also challenged the district court's subsequent imposition of a warrantless, suspicionless search condition as part of his federal supervised release. The Ninth affirmed the condition, explaining, [a]lthough warrantless, suspicionless search conditions of this sort should not be routinely imposed, they are not categorically forbidden." It determined the defendant's lengthy criminal history "justified the district court’s belief that [he] posed an exceptionally high risk of re-offending during his term of supervised release, and that subjecting him to suspicionless searches would be necessary to mitigate that risk."
