S.D.N.Y.: Court ordered search of person on federal supervision without PC was invalid

Court ordered search of defendant’s house on federal supervision without probable cause violated Fourth Amendment. No statute permits it, and a Rule 41 search warrant was not sought. Therefore, the search was governed by the Fourth Amendment. The good faith exception did not apply because there was no probable cause determination to rely on. United States v. Kone, 591 F. Supp. 2d 593 (S.D. N.Y. 2008):

The Circuit courts, surprisingly, are somewhat divided on whether the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement presumptively applies to probationer or parolee searches where no governing law or parole condition authorizes the warrantless search. The Second Circuit, however, has spoken on the issue, albeit in a case involving a probationer rather than a person on supervised release. In United States v. Rea — a decision that predated Griffin and Samson, but which has not been overruled — the Second Circuit held that the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement presumptively applies to the search of a probationer’s home, where no state law or condition of probation authorizes a warrantless search of the probationer. In Rea, the probationer was subject “to conditions of probation which generally tend[ed] to diminish his otherwise valid expectations of privacy from intrusion by Governmental authorities,” including, as here, the condition that the “probation officer c[ould] enter the probationer’s home without a warrant in order to make supervisory visits.” The Court held that, notwithstanding the probationer’s reduced expectations of privacy, the presumptive warrant requirement applied in these circumstances:

[N]o statutory provision exempts a probation officer from the requirement that he obtain a warrant before searching the home of a probationer. There also has been no showing that upholding the warrant requirements for searches of probationers’ homes will seriously impede the accomplishment of the dual law enforcement and rehabilitative goals of probation. Therefore, we hold that a probation officer is required to obtain a warrant prior to conducting a search of a probationer’s home unless the search falls within a judicially recognized exception to the warrant requirement.

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There are important limitations and exceptions to the Leon doctrine. Most important, for the Leon good faith exception to apply, “the officer’s reliance on the magistrate’s probable-cause determination … must be objectively reasonable.” In applying this principle, the Leon Court noted that, “depending on the circumstances of the particular case, a warrant may be so facially deficient — i.e., in failing to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized — that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.”