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IA: Parole agreement permitted suspicionless searches under Samson

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant's parole agreement provided for suspicionless searches, and that was valid under Samson. State v. Ochoa, 2009 Iowa App. LEXIS 125 (February 19, 2009).* Defendant's wife had apparent authority to consent even though defendant padlocked the door to the storage area a couple of days before she consented. People v. Shover, 2009 Colo. App. LEXIS 212 (February 19, 2009)*: The Randolph majority pointed out that "[t]he constant element in assessing Fourth Amendment reasonableness in the consent cases, then, is the great significance given to widely shared social expectations, which are naturally enough influenced by the law of property, but not controlled by its rules." 547 U.S. at 111. Thus, the padlock Shover installed a few days before the search is less important than the "commonly held understanding about the authority that co-inhabitants may exercise in ways that affect each other's interests...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on February 22, 2009 (boomark / email).