Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Super. Ct. No. F3704
ROBIE, J.
Defendant Richard Bruce Lavallee pled no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm and appeals the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence. Defendant contends the trial court erred when it admitted evidence that was the product of an invalid parole search. We disagree and affirm.
Because we conclude the parole search was valid, we need not decide whether, as defendant also argues, the search was an unreasonable search incident to arrest.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
In June 2005, defendant was on parole. One of his parole conditions permitted warrant less searches of his person, residence of record, and any areas within his control. On June 28, 2005, defendant’s supervising parole officer issued a warrant for defendant’s arrest after losing contact with him. The warrant stated that the parole officer’s attempts to contact defendant had failed, that defendant was not at his residence of record for a five-day period, and that defendant was not available for supervision.
On August 3, 2005, Calaveras County Deputy Kenneth Grognet received a phone call from an informant, who told him that defendant was living with Margie Soracco on Spink Road in West Point, Calaveras County. He explained that Soracco was his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, who also lived at that address. He further explained to the deputy that he had found defendant’s name on the Megan’s law Web site.
In response to the tip, Deputy Grognet, Parole Agent Rich Curtise, and several others went to the Spink Road residence in the early afternoon. Defendant and Soracco stood outside the house about 10 feet from the front door. Deputy Grognet ran the registration on a pickup parked alongside the house and found it was registered to defendant.
The officers arrested defendant and then performed a warrant less parole search of the Spink Road residence, discovering the firearms which culminated in defendant’s no contest plea and conviction.
DISCUSSION
Defendant contends the parole search was invalid because the officers lacked “probable cause” to believe he resided at the house they searched. We disagree, concluding the parole search was valid because the officers reasonably believed the house to be defendant’s residence or an area within his control.
I
Standard Of Review
We presume the trial court’s judgment was correct. (State Farm & Casualty Co. v. Pietak (2001) 90 Cal.App.4th 600, 610.) To rebut this presumption, the appellant must affirmatively demonstrate reversible error. (Ibid.) “In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we view the record in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling and defer to its findings of historical fact, whether express or implied, if they are supported by substantial evidence. We then decide for ourselves what legal principles are relevant, independently apply them to the historical facts, and determine as a matter of law whether there has been an unreasonable search and/or seizure.” (People v. Miranda (1993) 17 Cal.App.4th 917, 922.)
II
Search Clauses As Parole Conditions
“[P]arolees are on the ‘continuum’ of state-imposed punishments. [Citations.] On this continuum, parolees have fewer expectations of privacy than probationers, because parole is more akin to imprisonment than probation is to imprisonment. As [the United States Supreme] Court has pointed out, ‘parole is an established variation on imprisonment of convicted criminals. . . . The essence of parole is release from prison, before the completion of sentence, on the condition that the prisoner abides by certain rules during the balance of the sentence.’ [Citation.] ‘In most cases, the State is willing to extend parole only because it is able to condition it upon compliance with certain requirements.’” (Samson v. California (2006) 547 U.S. ___, ___ [165 L.Ed.2d. 250, 258].)
In Samson, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of suspicion less searches of a parolee because the parolee “did not have an expectation of privacy that society would recognize as legitimate.” (Samson v. California, supra, 547 U.S. at p. ___ [165 L.Ed.2d. at p. 259].) So long as a search condition was properly imposed, suspicion less searches of parolees are reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when they are not arbitrary, capricious, or harassing. (People v. Reyes (1998) 19 Cal.4th 743, 752.) “The threat of a suspicion less search is fully consistent with the deterrent purposes of the search condition.” (Ibid.)
Here, the issue is not whether the officers needed a reason to search the residence where they found defendant, but rather whether they had a sufficient basis for believing that residence was a place that fell within the scope of the search condition of defendant’s parole. Relying on federal case law, defendant contends “[w]hen the police search a home based upon a ‘search waiver’ in a parolee’s release, they must have information that supports probable cause to believe that the parolee resides in the premises.” In California, however, the courts have framed the issue in terms of reasonableness, without resorting to the potentially confusing language of probable cause. (See People v. Woods (1999) 21 Cal.4th 668, 682 [“officers generally may only search those portions of the residence they reasonably believe the probationer has complete or joint control over”].) We see no reason to depart from our “reasonable belief” standard, since the probable cause standard defendant advocates is substantially the same.
For example, in Motley v. Parks (9th Cir. 2005) 432 F.3d 1072, 1080, the court noted “that when it came to whether a person [on parole] lives at a particular residence, the ‘reason to believe’ or ‘reasonable belief’ standard ‘should be read to entail the same protection and reasonableness inherent in probable cause.’”
We therefore conclude that an officer or parole agent must reasonably believe that a particular item, person, or place to be searched is within the scope of a parolee’s search clause before conducting a valid warrant less parole search.
III
Validity Of The Parole Search
The question presented, then, is whether Deputy Grognet, Parole Agent Curtise, and the “several other deputies, investigators, and parole officers” who searched the home on Spink Road reasonably believed the home was an area within defendant’s control before conducting the parole search.
Defendant focuses on whether there was probable cause to believe the address was his residence, relying on U.S. v. Howard (9th Cir. 2006) 447 F.3d 1257, 1262. This reliance is misplaced. In Howard, the search clause covered the parolee’s “‘residence, person, property, and automobile.’” (Id. at p. 1258.) Here, in contrast, under defendant’s search clause his “person, his residence of record, [and] any areas within his control [we]re subject to search.” (Italics added.)
There is substantial evidence in the record that Deputy Grognet and Parole Agent Curtise were aware of defendant’s identity and his parole conditions before the parole search, which supports the reasonable inference that they were aware of the warrant issued for defendant’s arrest. The arrest warrant recounted that defendant had not been at his “residence of record for a five-day period, and [was] not available for supervision” by his parole officer. Viewed in the light most favorable to the judgment, there is substantial evidence in the record to support the inference that Deputy Grognet and Parole Agent Curtise believed that defendant had absconded from his residence of record and was residing elsewhere.
An informant told Deputy Grognet that defendant was living at the Spink Road residence with his ex-girlfriend, Margie Soracco, the mother of his child. This information was corroborated when Deputy Grognet arrived at the residence, confirmed that one of the trucks in the driveway was registered to defendant and identified him standing near the front door with Soracco.
The warrant for defendant’s arrest, when combined with corroborated information provided by an informant with a reliable basis of knowledge, gave the officers and parole agents sufficient information to reasonably believe that the Spink Road residence was an area within defendant’s control subject to a valid parole search. Thus, the parole search of the residence was within the scope of defendant’s search clause, and the trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: SCOTLAND, P.J., NICHOLSON, J.