W.D.Mo.: Search of house of person on supervised release could forcibly go into a locked safe

Defendant was on federal post-conviction supervised release, and his USPO received notification that defendant had a law enforcement contact for possession of stolen property. Defendant also called to inform him of the contact. A cell phone at the scene of the offense had a drug related text message to defendant. The USPO decided, based on experience, that the new offense was a sign there was more going on, so he assembled a search team to conduct a search of defendant’s house. They found a gun and drugs. They encountered a locked safe bolted to the floor, and defendant refused to give the combination. They pried it loose, took it outside and beat it open with a sledgehammer finding another loaded gun and drugs. USPO had reasonable suspicion that more could be found at home, and the safe search was reasonable. United States v. Thomas, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174919 (W.D.Mo. Dec. 14, 2015), adopted 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5732 (W.D. Mo. Jan. 19, 2016):

With regards to whether the search was conducted in a reasonable manner, Defendant most pointedly takes issue with the fact that law enforcement was present during the search and that the search team pried the safe from the floor and gained entry into it with a sledgehammer. These arguments, however, must fail. First, courts have held that the presence of law enforcement officers during a search conducted by a probation officer pursuant to a condition of supervised release is reasonable. See Dunn v. Mattivi, 535 F. App’x 535, 535 (8th Cir. 2013) (citing Knights, 534 U.S. at 122; United States v. Brown, 346 F.3d 808, 811-12 (8th Cir. 2003); United States v. Becker, 534 F.3d 952, 955-57 (8th Cir. 2008)). Second, the manner in which the search team decided to handle the safe was reasonable. USPO Schepers explained that, after finding a loaded firearm in Defendant’s residence and drugs, his experience led him to believe that the locked safe would contain firearms or drugs. Only after attempting to obtain the combination from Defendant did UPSO Schepers and the search team decide to pry the safe from the floor and attempt to gain entry by other means. Additionally, USPO Schepers testified that the search team made the decision to move the safe outside the residence in an effort to minimize damage to the area surrounding the safe in the home. Further, considering that this was a locked safe — a device specifically made and used to prevent people from accessing its contents — the use of a sledgehammer to gain entry was not unreasonable. See Lykken v. Brady, 622 F.3d 925, 930 (8th Cir. 2010) (“Although the Fourth Amendment protects against unnecessarily destructive searches and seizures, see Ginter v. Stallcup, 869 F.2d 384, 388 (8th Cir. 1989) (per curiam), the execution of a search warrant does occasionally require damage to property, see Dalia v. United States, 441 U.S. 238, 258, 99 S.Ct. 1682, 60 L.Ed.2d 177 (1979).”). Therefore, considering the circumstances here, the search was conducted in a reasonable manner that complies with the Fourth Amendment. Shade v. City of Farmington, Minn., 309 F.3d 1054, 1061 (8th Cir. 2002) (“The Fourth Amendment does not require officers to use the least intrusive or less intrusive means to effectuate a search but instead permits a range of objectively reasonable conduct.”)