In United States v. Dixon, --- F.3d ---, No. 19-10112 (9th Cir. 2020), the Court vacated the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence resulting from a vehicle search conducted pursuant to a 4th waiver supervised release condition.
The Court also held that the district court erred in denying Mr. Dixon's post-trial request for a 2-level acceptance of responsibility reduction.
Beginning with the search issue, the Court applied property-based trespass theory and held that a Fourth Amendment search occurs when an officer physically inserts a key into the lock of a vehicle for the purpose of obtaining information. It further concluded the contrary decision in United States v. $109,179 in U.S. Currency, 228 F.3d 1080 (9th Cir. 2000), was clearly irreconcilable with the Supreme Court’s property-based Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in Jones and Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013).
Although Mr. Dixon was subject to a 4th waiver as a condition of supervised release, this condition only applies when the individual subject to it “exhibit[s] a sufficiently strong connection to [the property in question] to demonstrate ‘control’ over it.” In other words, "before this condition authorizes a warrantless search, officers must have a sufficient 'degree of knowledge' that the search condition applies to the place or object to be searched."
The Court further held, "before conducting a warrantless search of a vehicle pursuant to a supervised release condition, law enforcement must have probable cause to believe that the supervisee owns or controls the vehicle to be searched."
Here, "the police crossed that knowledge threshold only when they inserted the key that Dixon had dropped into the car lock, thereby confirming that he exercised control over the minivan." As such, the initial search (inserting the key) was done without the requisite probable cause thus tainting the subsequent search of the car.
As to acceptance of responsibility, the Court explained, a defendant “may remain silent in respect to relevant conduct beyond the offense of conviction without affecting his ability to obtain a reduction under this subsection.” Thus, the failure to admit to conduct that the jury did not convict on does not necessarily preclude acceptance of responsibility.
"Given these principles, Dixon was at least eligible for the two-point acceptance reduction because he accepted responsibility for all conduct for which he was convicted. Dixon argues that from the beginning, even before he was indicted, he admitted that he possessed the controlled substances found on his person at Bayview Station, but contested that he possessed these drugs with an intent to distribute—the charged offense on which the jury hung. In other words, the jury convicted Dixon of only the lesser included offense of simple possession, for which he had consistently admitted responsibility. The Guidelines thus permitted the district court to conclude that Dixon had accepted responsibility for his criminal conduct."
