CA9: Hotel room was def’s “premises” and the parole search was reasonable

A hotel room rented by defendant’s girlfriend where they checked in as a couple was defendant’s “premises.” There was probable cause to believe it was defendant’s premises and under his control because his clothes were inside, and the girlfriend said that he had a key. The search was reasonable under the terms of defendant’s parole agreement. United States v. Cervantes, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 10763 (9th Cir. June 19, 2017):

A hotel room is not ordinarily a residence and is part of a building, so it fits comfortably within the meaning of “premises.” The remaining question is whether the room was under Cervantes’ control. For the same reason we established the probable-cause-as-to-residence requirement in Motley, we think the officers needed to have probable cause (as opposed to reasonable suspicion) to believe that the hotel room was under Cervantes’ control. As in the residence context, the privacy interests of third parties will often be invaded when officers search a building other than a residence without first obtaining the consent of the occupants or a warrant. To avoid unduly impinging upon those privacy interests, officers must be reasonably certain that the premises they seek to search are in fact under the parolee’s control. The probable cause standard embodies the appropriate degree of certainty required in this context, just as it does in the residence context. See Motley, 432 F.3d at 1080.

Did the officers have probable cause to believe that the hotel room was under Cervantes’ control? We think they did, based on the combination of facts present here. Most significantly, Cervantes told the officers that he and Farish were renting the room together. True, she paid for the room with her credit card, but she and Cervantes checked in together as a couple, as co-occupants. In that sense, the room was as much his as it was hers. That fact was confirmed by Cervantes’ possession of a key to the room, and by Cervantes’ informing the police that his belongings were inside the room. These facts, in combination, gave the officers probable cause to believe that the hotel room constituted “premises” under Cervantes’ control.

A search of a parolee that complies with the terms of a valid search condition will usually be deemed reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Samson, 547 U.S. at 852-54; Lopez, 474 F.3d at 1213-14. That would not be the case, however, if the officers violated California’s prohibition against arbitrary, capricious, or harassing searches. See Samson, 547 U.S. at 856; People v. Reyes, 19 Cal. 4th 743, 753-54, 80 Cal. Rptr. 2d 734, 968 P.2d 445 (1998). Cervantes contends that the officers violated this prohibition, but he is mistaken. The officers who orchestrated the search did not know Cervantes and had no prior encounters with him. Nothing in the record suggests that the officers conducted the search for an improper purpose, such as a desire to harass him or out of personal animosity toward him. They appear to have conducted the search solely for legitimate law-enforcement purposes. Nor did the officers conduct the search at an unreasonable time or in an unreasonable manner. We need not decide whether the fact that the officers searched the room while Cervantes and Farish were away rendered the search invalid, as Cervantes did not argue the point in his opening brief.