U.S. v. Lara – Ninth Circuit Holds Probation Searches Must Be Reasonable – Suppresses Cell Phone Search

On March 3, 2016, a Ninth Circuit panel reversed a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of warrantless, suspicionless searches of the defendant’s cell phone, and remanded for further proceedings. The panel noted that a probationer’s acceptance of a search term in a probation agreement does not by itself render lawful an otherwise unconstitutional search of a probationer’s person or property. The panel wrote that the issue is not solely whether the defendant accepted a cell phone search as a condition of his probation, but whether the search that he accepted was reasonable. Balancing the extent to which the searches intruded on the defendant’s substantial privacy interest in his cell phone and the data it contained against the government’s interests in combating recidivism and helping probationers integrate back into the community, the panel held that in the circumstances of this case the searches were unreasonable.

The full text of the decision can be read here: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/14-50120/14-50120-2016-03-03.html