noting that, where the “arresting officer had neither reasonable suspicion of criminal activity nor advance knowledge of a search condition that might have justified the search,” “[t]he totality of these circumstances amounts to very little and does not justify the officer’s search”
How later courts described this case
- noting that, where the “arresting officer had neither reasonable suspicion of criminal activity nor advance knowledge of a search condition that might have justified the search,” “[t]he totality of these circumstances amounts to very little and does not justify the officer’s search”
- applying rationale of Sanders to a warrantless search of a juvenile probationer whose probationary status was unknown to the officer at the time of the search
- “To allow searches of probationers or parolees based solely on the officer’s supposed subjective ‘belief’ that legal cause existed for a search predictably would invite repeated harassment and arbitrary searches.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
BAXTER, J., Dissenting.
In finding the juvenile court erroneously denied suppression of the loaded firearm found in the juvenile probationer’s car, the majority adopts the rule that, when an officer detains a juvenile driving on a public street, without advance knowledge that the juvenile is subject to a search and seizure condition of probation but with a mistaken belief that a traffic violation has occurred, any contraband subsequently found in the car must be suppressed, notwithstanding the juvenile’s greatly reduced expectation of privacy due to the probation condition and other circumstances surrounding the detention and subsequent search. Because the majority’s rule flouts the federal constitutional standards that govern evidence suppression in California, I dissent. 1
A. The Facts of the Challenged Detention and Search
In this case, the juvenile was subject to a validly imposed condition of probation that required him to submit his person and property, including his car, to warrantless searches and seizures at any time, with or without probable cause.
While driving a car on a public street with three companions, the juvenile was pulled over by a police officer for a perceived traffic law violation, which *140 perception later proved incorrect. The officer made no attempt to search the juvenile or his car for contraband at the outset of the stop. Instead, the officer followed routine traffic stop procedures and asked the juvenile for his driver’s license, which the juvenile said he did not have. As the two spoke, the officer saw a box of ammunition in the car in plain view. Further inquiry disclosed that none of the car’s occupants possessed a valid driver’s license, and the officer ordered the car impounded.
A loaded firearm was discovered during a subsequent inventory search of the impounded car. The juvenile court denied the juvenile’s motion to suppress the firearm evidence.
B. Totality of the Circumstances Analysis
In re Tyrell J. (1994) 8 Cal.4th 68 [ 32 Cal.Rptr.2d 33 , 876 P.2d 519 ] (Tyrell J.) upheld the admission of evidence obtained through the warrantless search of a juvenile by a police officer who was unaware of the juvenile’s probation search condition at the time of the search. In doing so, Tyrell J. stated categorically that a minor subject to a probation condition allowing warrantless searches has “no reasonable expectation of privacy” over contraband on his person. ( 8 Cal.4th at p. 74 , italics added; see also id. at p. 86.) Today the majority overrules Tyrell J. by adopting a different rule that, without exception, the absence of advance officer knowledge of a juvenile’s probation search condition compels exclusion of the fruits of a suspicionless detention and subsequent search of the juvenile probationer’s car. Recent Fourth Amendment decisions, however, make it apparent that both categorical approaches are wrong.
Earlier this year the United States Supreme Court decided Samson v. California (2006) 547 U.S. 843 [ 165 L.Ed.2d 250 , 126 S.Ct. 2193 ] (Samson), which emphasizes the now familiar principle that courts are to examine the “ ‘totality of the circumstances’ ” in determining whether a particular search is reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. ( Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2197 ].) Samson and other recent United States Supreme Court decisions demonstrate that many of the notions underlying today’s majority holding should be rejected as obsolete. By neglecting to faithfully apply the high court’s totality of the circumstances analysis and instead requiring the suppression of evidence based on outdated reasoning and ill-conceived criticisms of Tyrell J., the majority reaches a result flatly at odds with current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
Samson affirmed that a parolee search condition can “so diminish or eliminate a [parolee’s] reasonable expectation of privacy that a suspicionless search by a law enforcement officer would not offend the Fourth Amendment.” (Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p. _ [ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2196 ], fn. *141 omitted.) Although the officer in Samson had knowledge of the lawfully imposed search condition at the time of the challenged search, while here the officer did not, Samson reiterated that the reasonableness of a search under the Fourth Amendment must be determined by the “ ‘totality of the circumstances’ ” surrounding the search. ( Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._[26 S.Ct. at p. 2197].)
Tyrell J. was decided long before Samson and another fairly recent high court decision concerning probationers, United States v. Knights (2001) 534 U.S. 112 [ 151 L.Ed.2d 497 , 122 S.Ct. 587 ] (Knights). Nonetheless, the end result of Tyrell J., if not its analysis, holds up under these later decisions. Under Knights and Samson , the exclusionary rule does not require suppression of evidence obtained as a result of a search that is reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and “[w]hether a search is reasonable ‘is determined by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.’ ” (Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p. _ [ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2197 ], quoting Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at pp. 118-119.)
With regard to the degree to which a search is intrusive, there was no dispute that the juvenile in Tyrell J., like the juvenile here, was on probation under the lawfully imposed condition that he submit his person and property to warrantless search by any peace officer, with or without probable cause, and there appeared no reason to doubt the juvenile had been clearly informed of this condition. Tyrell J.’s observation—that a juvenile probationer subject to a valid search condition “has a greatly reduced expectation of privacy” over his or her person or property (Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 87, fn. 5 )—is very similar to the United States Supreme Court’s conclusion that the existence of a probation search condition is a “salient circumstance” that “significantly diminish[es]” the probationer’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.” (Kn ights, supra, 534 U.S. at pp. 118, 120; see also Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2199 ] [concluding the subject parolee “did not have an expectation of privacy that society would recognize as legitimate”].) However, to the extent Tyrell J. flatly stated a juvenile probationer has “no reasonable expectation of privacy” (Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 74 , italics added), we may easily correct this and clarify both that a juvenile probationer’s expectation of privacy is greatly reduced but not eliminated, and that the existence of a valid search and seizure condition is significant but not necessarily controlling on the question of reasonableness.
As for the degree to which a warrantless search of a juvenile probationer is “ ‘needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests’ ” (Knights, supra, 534 U.S. at p. 119 ), there is no doubt the governmental interests at *142 stake in the probation context are legitimate and well established. “[I]t must be remembered that ‘the very assumption of the institution of probation’ is that the probationer ‘is more likely than the ordinary citizen to violate the law.’ [Citation.] The recidivism rate of probationers is significantly higher than the general crime rate. [Citations.] And probationers have even more of an incentive to conceal their criminal activities and quickly dispose of incriminating evidence than the ordinary criminal because probationers are aware that they may be subject to supervision and face revocation of probation, and possible incarceration, in proceedings in which the trial rights of a jury and proof beyond a reasonable doubt, among other things, do not apply [citations].” (Id. at p. 120 [addressing adult probationers].) Indeed, California has two valid concerns with a probationer: “On the one hand is the hope that he will successfully complete probation and be integrated back into the community. On the other is the concern, quite justified, that he will be more likely to engage in criminal conduct than an ordinary member of the community.” (Id. at pp. 120-121.) As Samson observed, the high court “has repeatedly acknowledged that a State’s interests in reducing recidivism and thereby promoting reintegration and positive citizenship among probationers .. . warrant privacy intrusions that would not otherwise be tolerated under the Fourth Amendment.” ( Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._ [ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2200 ].)
Additionally, this case involves the special needs of juvenile probation, which “ ‘is not an act of leniency, but is a final order made in the minor’s best interest.’ ” (Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 81 .) As Justice Werdegar keenly observes, “The purposes and goals of juvenile proceedings are manifestly different from criminal proceedings involving adults.” (People v. Reyes (1998) 19 Cal.4th 743, 768-769 [ 80 Cal.Rptr.2d 734 , 968 P.2d 445 ] (conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J.).) “Unlike a prison sentence and subsequent period of parole imposed on the adult offender, ‘[t]he process of the juvenile court involves determination of the needs of the child and society, provision for guidance and treatment for the juvenile, and protection of the child from punishment and stigma.’ ” (Id. at p. 769.) Accordingly, a juvenile has no choice whether or not to accept a condition of probation that subjects him to a warrantless search, for “[i]t would be inconsistent with the juvenile court’s determination of the best manner in which to facilitate rehabilitation of a minor if [the minor] could . . . elect to forgo home placement on probation and instead choose detention at the California Youth Authority.” (Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 82 .)
In the adult probationer context, Knights concluded that a warrantless investigatory search, supported by reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and authorized by a condition of probation, is reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and that the search is not invalid for lacking a probation-related purpose. Although Knights did not reach the question *143 whether a search of a probationer would be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment if predicated solely on a condition of probation, Samson undertook to address that question, albeit in the context of a parolee search. ( Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2198 ].)
Significantly, Samson concluded that California’s interest in reducing recidivism while promoting reintegration of parolees into productive society justified a supervisory scheme that allowed suspicionless searches. ( Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2200 ].) Therefore, the searches in this case and in Tyrell J. are in line with the suspicionless searches the Fourth Amendment allows for parolees and, presumably, for probationers. 2
Applying the proper analysis to the facts of this case, I conclude the detention of the juvenile and the warrantless search of his vehicle were reasonable within the contemplation of the Fourth Amendment, despite the officer’s lack of knowledge of the juvenile’s probation search condition, given the totality of the following circumstances: (1) as in Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at page_[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2200 ], California’s significant interests in “reducing recidivism and thereby promoting reintegration and positive citizenship” among juvenile probationers would be advanced by a probation oversight system that allows suspicionless searches; (2) here, the juvenile probationer was subject to a validly imposed condition of probation that required him to submit his person and property, including his vehicle, to a warrantless search and seizure at any time, with or without probable cause; (3) the probation condition greatly diminished the juvenile’s subjective and objective expectations of privacy, especially while in a car on a public street (People v. Wells (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1078 [ 45 Cal.Rptr.3d 8 , 136 P.3d 810 ]); 3 (4) the officer stopped the juvenile’s car—not on an arbitrary whim, or out of caprice, or because he sought to harass the occupants—but with what the officer believed was proper justification based on the juvenile’s failure to signal when turning and pulling over to the curb 4 (see pt. C., post); (5) the juvenile’s probation condition provided legal authority for the type of detention that occurred; (6) although the officer apparently misjudged the propriety *144 of the traffic stop, he made no attempt to search the juvenile or the car for contraband at the outset of the stop; (7) instead, the officer followed routine traffic stop procedures and asked for the juvenile’s driver’s license; (8) as the officer spoke with the juvenile and ascertained that the juvenile did not have a driver’s license, he saw a box of ammunition in the car in plain view; (9) further inquiry led to the officer’s discovery that none of the car’s occupants possessed a valid driver’s license, and these circumstances provided sufficient grounds to impound the car; and (10) the loaded firearm was not discovered during an on-site search of the car, but was found during an inventory search after the car was impounded. Under these circumstances, the Fourth Amendment does not require suppression of the loaded firearm evidence at the juvenile court proceeding.
C. Arbitrary, Capricious, or Harassing Searches
As indicated, federal constitutional standards govern our review of issues relating to the suppression of evidence obtained from police searches and seizures. (People v. Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 794; see ante, fn. 1.) In holding the evidence obtained from the instant search must be suppressed, the majority reasons that a warrantless search following a detention of a probationer that is supported by neither reasonable suspicion nor advance police knowledge of an applicable probation condition is “arbitrary” or “harassing” and therefore unreasonable and subject to suppression. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 137, 138.)
As a preliminary matter, the majority is wrong to characterize a detention and search of a probationer as arbitrary or harassing, merely because reasonable suspicion and advance knowledge of a probation search condition are found lacking. An officer can act with a legitimate law enforcement purpose without knowing the person under investigation is a probationer, and an officer’s mistaken belief as to the sufficiency of legal grounds for a search does not transform a search that is later found to be illegal into one that was arbitrary or harassing for lack of a proper law enforcement purpose. Put another way, when a court later determines that an officer’s detention of a probationer was not supported by reasonable suspicion, the officer’s mere mistake in concluding such suspicion existed does not render the detention and subsequent search arbitrary, capricious or harassing. (See People v. Cervantes (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 1404, 1408 [ 127 Cal.Rptr.2d 468 ] [“[a] mere legal or factual error by an officer that would otherwise render a search illegal, e.g., a mistake in concluding that probable cause exists for an arrest, does not render the search arbitrary, capricious or harassing”].)
*145 More importantly, the United States Supreme Court has not ruled that, under the Fourth Amendment, the reasonableness of a suspicionless search of a probationer or parolee is dependent on the searching officer’s knowledge of a valid search condition. Instead, the high court has commented: “Under California precedent, we note, an officer would not act reasonably in conducting a suspicionless search absent knowledge that the person stopped for the search is a parolee. See People v. Sanders [(2003) 31 Cal.4th 318, 331-332 [ 2 Cal.Rptr.3d 630 , 73 P.3d 496 ]; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20.]” ( Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2202, fn. 5 ], italics added.) It bears emphasis that the high court expressed this point while dismissing the concern that California’s suspicionless search system inflicts “dignitary harms that arouse strong resentment in parolees and undermine their ability to reintegrate into productive society.” (Id. at p._[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2202 ].) In doing so, the high court shows it evidently regards the matter of officer knowledge as a California requirement that guards against the type of searches that potentially could frustrate the goals of California’s parole system, and not as a Fourth Amendment requirement of a reasonable search or a federal constitutional basis for suppression of evidence.
On this last point, I observe that the majority’s categorical approach here is similar to the approach advocated by the dissent in Samson . That is, the Samson dissent would have adopted a bright-line rule of unreasonableness to the effect that the Fourth Amendment does not permit warrantless searches of parolees that are supported neither by individualized suspicion nor by special needs. ( Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2203 ] (dis. opn. of Stevens, J.).) The dissent also suggested “[i]t would necessarily be arbitrary, capricious, and harassing to conduct a suspicionless search of someone without knowledge of the status that renders that person, in the State’s judgment, susceptible to such an invasion.” (Id. at p._[ 126 S.Ct. at p. 2207, fn. 7 ], italics added). Significantly, the Samson majority did not adopt or otherwise approve of the dissent’s categorical approaches, and this court likewise should avoid doing so here.
Indeed, the majority here is unable to cite to any high court opinion that has embraced this particular rule in assessing when searches involving probationers or parolees are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. That is not surprising, as even the majority here and courts in other jurisdictions cite California decisional law, not the federal Constitution, as the origin of that rule. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 137; e.g., United States v. Stuckey (S.D.N.Y. 2006) 2006 WL 2390268 , *3, fn. 2; United States v. Albert (N.D.Cal. 2006) 2006 WL 2078564 , *2.)
*146 D. Stated Bases for Overruling Tyrell J.
Instead of looking to the high court’s Fourth Amendment decisions and its totality of the circumstances analysis for guidance on whether or not the evidence in Tyrell J. required suppression, the majority concludes Tyrell J. should be overruled based on: (1) the conclusion in People v. Sanders, supra, 31 Cal.4th 318 (Sanders) that the rule in In re Martinez (1970) 1 Cal.3d 641 [ 83 Cal.Rptr. 382 , 463 P.2d 734 ] requires the reasonableness of a search be determined based on the circumstances known to the officer when the search is conducted (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 133-134); (2) Sanders’s determination, based on the dissent’s observation in Tyrell J., that requiring officer awareness of search conditions would not itself affect the goal of deterrence, because the very existence of a probation search condition should deter further criminal acts (maj. opn., ante, at p. 134); and (3) the identification in Sanders of “a substantial body of scholarly commentary critical of our Tyrell J. analysis,” the gist of which was that “Tyrell J. eroded the Fourth Amendment protections for juveniles by giving police an incentive to conduct a warrantless search, unsupported by reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct, in the bare hope that a search condition may exist” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 135). None of these reasons provides a sound analytical basis for completely rejecting Tyrell J. in favor of an approach that finds a search following a suspicionless detention of a juvenile probationer unreasonable per se if the officer lacks knowledge of an applicable search condition.
1. In re Martinez
In 1970, In re Martinez found that police authorities, who did not know of a defendant’s parole status, violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights by undertaking an investigative search lacking in probable cause that related to the defendant’s suspected criminal activity. (In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d at p. 646 .) In so concluding, In re Martinez regarded a parolee’s reasonable expectation of privacy far more favorably and expansively than have later United States Supreme Court decisions.
For example, In re Martinez stated: “The conditional nature of a parolee’s freedom may result in some diminution of his reasonable expectation of privacy and thus may render some intrusions by parole officers ‘reasonable’ even when the information relied on by the parole officers does not reach the traditional level of ‘probable cause.’ ” (In re Martinez, supra, 1 Cal.3d at p. 647, fn. 6 , italics added.) In observing that a “diminution of Fourth Amendment protection[s]” “can be justified only to the extent actually necessitated by the legitimate demands of the operation of the parole process” (ibid.), In re Martinez concluded that unless suspected parole violations are involved, a search by police officers to investigate suspected criminal activity could not be undertaken without probable cause. (Id. at p. 646.)
*147 It is worth noting at the outset that Tyrell J. addressed the analysis in In re Martinez and rejected the reasoning that Sanders adopted. (Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th at pp. 88-89.) Moreover, as Samson, supra, 547 U.S. 843 [ 126 S.Ct. 2193 ], illustrates, the notions upon which In re Martinez was based—i.e., regarding (1) the perception that a lawfully imposed search and seizure condition results only in some diminution of a parolee’s privacy expectations and (2) the perceived invalidity of a parole system that allows suspicionless searches to investigate suspected criminal activity as well as suspected parole violations—are now obsolete.
In light of Samson , we should revisit Sanders’s adoption of In re Martinez’s reasoning that no circumstances other than those known to the officer are relevant to determining whether a search of a parolee is reasonable. (See Sanders, supra, 31 Cal.4th at p. 332 .) First, by assessing only the reasonableness of an officer’s suspicion in undertaking a particular search, and neglecting to evaluate the actual reasonableness of the search in view of both the officer’s actions and the suspect’s legitimate privacy expectations, the rule provides an incomplete measure of whether a search does or does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Second, the rule in In re Martinez was articulated at a very different time, when parolees were not viewed as having significantly reduced expectations of privacy. Finally, the rule is inconsistent with the high court’s current emphasis on the “fact-specific nature of the reasonableness inquiry” and rejection of “bright-line rules.” (Ohio v. Robinette (1996) 519 U.S. 33, 39 [ 136 L.Ed.2d 347 , 117 S.Ct. 417 ].)
2. Deterrence of Recidivism and Criminal Misconduct
The majority agrees with Sanders’s conclusion, based on the dissent’s observation in Tyrell J., that requiring officer awareness of search conditions would not itself affect the goal of deterrence, because the very existence of a probation search condition should deter further criminal acts. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 134.) I disagree. While the existence of a search condition may deter some juvenile probationers from committing further criminal acts, a bright-line rule requiring officer awareness inhibits the goal of deterrence by materially restricting the lawfully imposed condition that a probationer and his property are subject to a search and seizure by any peace officer at any place at any time. By eliminating any distinction between the reasonable privacy expectations of a juvenile probationer and those of a law-abiding citizen in the context of a search that follows a suspicionless detention, and allowing juvenile probationers with greatly reduced expectations of privacy to escape the consequences of their recidivist misconduct in cases like this, such a rule undermines the state’s special need to rehabilitate and reintegrate youthful offenders into productive society.
*148 3. Incentive to Conduct Warrantless Searches
Tyrell J. reasoned: “Because [the officer] did not know whether the minor was subject to a search condition, the officer took the chance that the search would be deemed improper. If it had turned out that the minor was not subject to a search condition, any contraband found in the search of the minor would have been inadmissible in court. Thus, under our interpretation, law enforcement officers still have a sufficient incentive to try to avoid improperly invading a person’s privacy.” (Tyrell J., supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 89 .)
On this score, the majority finds persuasive “a substantial body of scholarly commentary” criticizing Tyrell J. for “eroding] the Fourth Amendment protections for juveniles by giving police an incentive to conduct a warrant-less search, unsupported by reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct, in the bare hope that a search condition may exist.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 135.)
These criticisms are off the mark. The United States Supreme Court has now made it quite clear that the constitutional reasonableness of a search must be determined in view of the totality of the circumstances. I believe the high court most likely would reject a blanket rule of unreasonableness in the context of probationer and parolee searches, for it has repeatedly emphasized that these convicted lawbreakers possess significantly reduced expectations of privacy due to legally imposed search and seizure conditions that provide for suspicionless detentions and searches.
Moreover, the United States Supreme Court continues to caution that the exclusionary rule generates “ ‘substantial social costs,’ ” including “setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large.” (Hudson v. Michigan (2006) 547 U.S. 586 ,_[ 165 L.Ed.2d 56 , 126 S.Ct. 2159, 2163 ].) Because the exclusionary rule exacts a “ ‘ “costly toll” upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives,’ ” courts must avoid its “ ‘[indiscriminate application’ ” and impose the rule only “ ‘where its deterrence benefits outweigh its “substantial social costs.” ’ ” (Ibid.) To the extent no search and seizure condition exists to reduce an individual’s legitimate privacy expectations, and the totality of the circumstances do not otherwise support the reasonableness of a search, imposition of the exclusionary rule provides ample incentive to deter police misconduct in proper measure to the attendant social costs. But applying the rule expansively beyond those situations in which a search actually intrudes on a person’s reasonable privacy expectations, under the fiction that the *149 search condition did not even exist, as the majority does here, amounts to an indiscriminate application violating the cardinal principle that suppression of evidence should always be “our last resort, not our first impulse.” (Ibid.)
Finally, I note the majority’s categorical rule is sure to result in absurd applications in those situations where an officer is able to verify a juvenile’s probationer status only after making a detention. For instance, imagine that an officer in a future case pulls a juvenile’s car over for a perceived traffic violation, and thereafter recognizes (or otherwise ascertains) that the juvenile is a probationer subject to a probation search and seizure condition. The officer then conducts an on-the-scene search of the juvenile and his car, and finds contraband. Alternatively, imagine the officer in the instant case discovered the juvenile was subject to a probation search and seizure condition after the car was detained and impounded but before it was searched. Under the majority’s rule, the contraband in both situations must be suppressed if the juvenile court determines the initial traffic stop was illegal because it was supported neither by reasonable suspicion of criminal activity nor by advance knowledge of an applicable search and seizure condition.
E. Conclusion
I agree Tyrell J. should be disapproved to the extent it concludes that a juvenile subject to a valid search and seizure condition of probation has no reasonable expectation of privacy. In this regard, we are bound to follow the United States Supreme Court’s analysis that suppression of evidence is not required when the police conduct a search that is reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and that the reasonableness of a search depends on the totality of the circumstances. Under that analysis, a juvenile who is subject to a valid search condition has privacy expectations that are greatly reduced but not eliminated, and the existence of a valid search condition is significant but not necessarily controlling on the question of reasonableness.
Here, the totality of the circumstances surrounding the challenged search shows, among other things, that the juvenile was subject to a valid search and seizure condition of probation that provided legal authority for an investigative search and greatly diminished the juvenile’s objective and subjective expectations of privacy, that the officer stopped the juvenile’s car—not arbitrarily, capriciously, or for purposes of harassment—but for what he mistakenly perceived was a traffic violation, and that the traffic stop was not particularly intrusive before the officer saw a box of ammunition in plain view in the car, which justified further investigation and ultimately led to the car’s impoundment and inventory search.
*150 Thus, despite the officer’s ignorance of the juvenile’s probation search condition, I would find that the traffic stop and subsequent inventory search of the car did not violate the juvenile’s rights under the Fourth Amendment, and would hold that the loaded firearm evidence was admissible in juvenile court.
In the absence of express statutory authority, California courts may not exclude evidence seized in violation of either the state or federal Constitution unless exclusion is compelled by the federal Constitution. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 28, subd. (d); In re Lance W. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 873, 884-890 [ 210 Cal.Rptr. 631 , 694 P.2d 744 ].) Accordingly, we review issues relating to the suppression of evidence derived from police searches and seizures under federal constitutional standards. (People v. Robles (2000) 23 Cal.4th 789, 794 [ 97 Cal.Rptr.2d 914 , 3 P.3d 311 ].)
Although the high court acknowledged that parolees have even fewer expectations of privacy than probationers “because parole is more akin to imprisonment than probation is to imprisonment” ( Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p._[126 S.Ct. at p. 2198]), it also reiterated the point that “a State’s interest in reducing recidivism and thereby promoting reintegration and positive citizenship among probationers and parolees warrant privacy intrusions that would not otherwise be tolerated under the Fourth Amendment” (id. at p._[126 S.Ct. at p. 2200], italics added).
“ ‘[I]n light of the pervasive regulation of vehicles capable of traveling on the public highways, individuals generally have a reduced expectation of privacy while driving a vehicle on public thoroughfares.’ ” (People v. Wells, supra, 38 Cal.4th at p. 1087 .)
Even if a probationer might otherwise bear the burden of showing a search was undertaken in a capricious, arbitrary, or harassing manner when the officer has knowledge of a probation search and seizure condition, I believe that in situations where awareness of the probation *144 condition is lacking at the time of the search, the People might appropriately shoulder the burden of showing it was not conducted in a capricious, arbitrary, or harassing manner. Here, any such burden was met.