In re A.C.C

Third District Juvenile, Salt Lake The Honorable Frederic M. Oddone On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals 1 Acting pursuant to a probation order that subjected A.C.C., a minor, to random searches, a probation officer searched A.C.C.'s backpack and seized a device used to inhale marijuana. Based on this seizure, the officer filed a delinquency charge against A.C.C. in juvenile court; A.C.C. then filed a motion to suppress the drug paraphernalia, arguing that the officer's search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 14 of the Utah Constitution. The juvenile court denied this motion, reasoning that A.C.C. lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in his backpack because of the terms of his probation. The Utah Court of Appeals reversed and held that the Fourth Amendment required a ""reasonable suspicion"" on the part of the probation officer before conducting a warrantless search of A.C.C.'s belongings. 2 On certiorari, the State initially contends that the appellate court erred in applying the exclusionary rule developed with respect to the Fourth Amendment to A.C.C.'s juvenile court delinquency proceeding. It further contends that, even if the exclusionary rule applies to A.C.C.'s delinquency proceeding, the court of appeals erred in concluding that A.C.C. had a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding the contraband in his backpack. We conclude that in light of the express terms of his probation, A.C.C. had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the seized contraband and could not suppress it. We therefore reverse the court of appeals.