D.N.H.: Bail conditions can permit otherwise illegal searches of the person; same as parole search

Officers had reasonable suspicion to conduct a patdown of the defendant. Even if they didn’t, a bail condition of his would have permitted it. United States v. Drane, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88729 (D. N.H. June 30, 2014):

Finally, even if the police lacked reasonable suspicion to search Drane for weapons, that search nevertheless did not violate Drane’s Fourth Amendment rights. At the time of the traffic stop, Drane was subject to bail conditions that, “[i]n order to determine if [he] ha[d] violated any prohibitions of [the] bond regarding … illegal drugs,” he would “submit to searches of [his] person … at any time without articulable suspicion or probable cause.” The Court of Appeals has ruled that, “even in the absence of articulable suspicion,” similar bail conditions “independently justified” the police in searching a suspect, “see[ing] no reason why [it] should not give the plain language of the bail condition force and effect.” United States v. Gates, 709 F.3d 58, 64 (1st Cir. 2013). The same result is in order here–particularly since Drane has not argued otherwise. Because the officers’ actions toward Drane after they stopped him in Biddeford, Maine, in June 2012 did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights, his motion to suppress the evidence resulting from that stop (including the crack cocaine he ultimately produced from his underwear) is denied.

In Gates, a panel of the First Circuit held merely, with zero analysis: “After all, the defendant had agreed, as part of his bail conditions incident to the charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, to submit to searches of his person and residence at any time, even in the absence of articulable suspicion. We see no reason why we should not give the plain language of such a bail condition force and effect.” The court relied on Samson and a First Circuit parole search case. The short answer: A parolee has been convicted, but a person on pretrial release has not. Big difference, which they cavalierly don’t brush off; they don’t even recognize it.