More than twenty years ago, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of warrantless searches of probationers and their homes when (A) officers have reasonable suspicion to suspect they will find evidence of criminal activity, and (B) a search provision is a condition of probation. If warrantless searches of a probationer’s home can be reasonable as to the probationer, what is the impact on the Fourth Amendment rights of non-probationer occupants of the home? In US v. Harden, the Eleventh Circuit determined that a non-probationer (e.g., a girlfriend) who knows of their co-occupant’s (e.g., boyfriend’s) probation status has a diminished expectation of privacy that is outweighed by law enforcement’s need to search the home. Therefore, an otherwise reasonable search of a probationer’s home is not rendered unreasonable simply because a non-probationer also lives in the home. [By Caitlyn Wade].
Officers in an unnamed South Florida town responded to a 911 call about a “white male casing the area and traveling westbound.” One officer encountered Gonzalez walking in the middle of the street half a block from the caller’s home, and the caller told another officer that he had seen the suspect looking into mailboxes, hiding between cars, and coming out of the gate of a neighbor who was out of town. Gonzalez had scissors in his pocket, was acting nervous, and lived far from the area. The officers arrested him for loitering and prowling, a Florida misdemeanor. They then found stolen mail in his backpack, for which he was later convicted in federal court. Gonzalez challenged the arrest, arguing that an arrest for a misdemeanor (as opposed to a felony) not committed in the officer’s presence requires a warrant. In US v. Gonzalez, the Eleventh Circuit, addressing the issue for the first time, joined the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits and disagreed. The panel acknowledged that the common law seemed to include an in-the-presence requirement for warrantless misdemeanor arrests, but it found that Fourth Amendment precedent has never required it. The panel reasoned that the rule wasn’t so clear as at common law, that distinguishing between misdemeanor and felony conduct is just too darn hard, and that the general Fourth Amendment totality-of-the-circumstances reasonableness requirement is plenty protective of our rights. Because the officers had probable cause to believe Gonzalez had unlawfully loitered and/or prowled, his motion to suppress was properly denied. [By Colin Garrett].
Terius Thomas pled guilty to attempted Hobbs Act Robbery. He tried to rob his Uber driver at gunpoint, but the robbery was unsuccessful, plus Thomas fired two shots at the car, leaving one bullet hole in the hood of the trunk. The district court applied a guideline range of 63-78 months in prison but varied upward and imposed a sentence of 120 months in prison. Thomas appealed the sentence arguing that (1) the court miscalculated the guideline range (it should have been 57-71 months in prison, although no one objected at the hearing), which was plain error under Rule 52 and Molina-Martinez v. US, 578 U.S. 189, 200 (2016); and (2) the sentence is both procedurally and substantively unreasonable. In US v. Thomas, the Eleventh Circuit panel found plain error in the district court’s guidelines calculation, but it held that the error did not affect Thomas’ substantial rights because there was not a “reasonable probability that the error affected the outcome of the district court proceedings.” It is true, said the panel, that the Supreme Court has held that in “most cases” where a guideline error results in a higher range, there is a “reasonable probability of a different outcome” worthy of a remand and a new sentencing hearing. Unfortunately, the panel held, Thomas’ case is not “most cases.” The district court had a host of reasons outside the guidelines to sentence Thomas the way that it did. The panel held that the sentence is neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable, considering, amongst other things, that the sentence is below the 240-month statutory max and that shooting at Uber drivers is frowned upon. [By Chelsea Champion].