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People v. Spence4/9/2003
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
This case presents the question whether the exclusionary rule should apply to a probation search conducted by police officers in reliance on a probation roster that, by design, omitted information concerning judicially imposed limitations on the authority to conduct a probation search.
A judge may grant probation conditioned on a defendant's consent to warrantless searches. On occasion, a judge may limit the scope of the defendant's consent to searches for particular contraband, such as drugs or stolen property. Here, defendant consented solely to searches for stolen property as a condition of his probation. The probation department provided to a law enforcement agency a computer generated roster of probationers subject to search conditions. The roster's design omitted any limitations on the scope of the probationer's consent, and thus did not reflect that the scope of defendant's consent was limited to searches for stolen property. Relying on this incomplete roster, police officers searched defendant's residence for drugs, believing that his consent was without limitation.
The Attorney General argues that this case involves the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. In our original opinion we rejected that argument, explaining that law enforcement agencies may not rely in good faith on information conveyed to them in a report designed to omit a judicially imposed limitation on the scope of a probation search.
We explained that the good faith exception does not permit reliance on the "objectively reasonable" belief of individual police officers when law enforcement agencies know or should know of flaws in their recordkeeping and reporting systems. (See People v. Downing (1995) 33 Cal.App.4th 1641, fn. 26, 1657.)
Our Supreme Court granted the People's petition for review and retransferred the cause to this court with directions to vacate our decision and to reconsider the cause in light of People v. Willis (2002) 28 Cal.4th 22 (Willis). Having done so, we again conclude that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply to this case.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Defendant Kevin Bryan Spence was convicted of auto theft in 1994 and was placed on probation.
In 1996, a petition was filed alleging defendant failed to obey all laws in that he possessed drug paraphernalia and a controlled substance.
Defendant made a motion to suppress the evidence that supported the petition. The following evidence was presented at the hearing on the motion.
On January 23, 1996, Woodland Police Officers Matthew Sears and Steven Gill conducted a probation search of defendant's residence. Prior to the search, Sears had obtained information that defendant was on probation with a search condition. The source of the information was a computer-generated roster prepared by the Yolo County Probation Department and furnished to the Woodland Police Department. Sears either viewed the roster personally or obtained the information from a police department employee . Before conducting the search, Sears verified the information with Yolo County Communications and with defendant himself. Sears asked defendant whether he was on probation and searchable, and defendant answered, "yes." Sears did not recall asking defendant whether there were "any special conditions about his search," and defendant did not mention that his consent was limited to searches for stolen property.
Officer Sears testified that he searched defendant's residence primarily for narcotics. The officers found drug paraphernalia and a small amount of methamphetamine in defendant's
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