Appellant Derek Graham was on probation in Massachusetts for various drug offenses. When he failed to comply with probation reporting requirements, the police secured a warrant for his arrest. To execute this warrant, officers entered an apartment, and, after finding Graham in one of the apartment’s bedrooms, they arrested him and searched the room. The search yielded a sawed-off shotgun and ammunition. Based on this evidence, a federal grand jury charged Graham with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
Graham sought to suppress the evidence, arguing that the police violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution in acquiring it. After the district court resolved the suppression motion against Graham, he entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal the suppression ruling. He now exercises that right.
Graham argues that both the officers’ entry into the apartment and the subsequent search of the bedroom where he was arrested violated the Fourth Amendment. He claims that because he was a social guest in the apartment, the police needed to first obtain a search warrant to enter the apartment, in addition to the arrest warrant they had procured. Additionally, he argues that even if the arrest warrant justified the entry into the apartment, the police still needed a search warrant to conduct the search of the bedroom.
In response, the government argues that the entry by the officers was permitted under the rule of
Payton v. New York,
I.
A. Background
We state the relevant facts as the trial court found them, consistent with record support.
United States v. Ruidiaz,
After committing various drug offenses, Derek Graham was sentenced to probation by a Massachusetts state court. The probation order, issued in mid-October 2004, required Graham to comply with several standard conditions. The order also included the following search condition:
On the basis of a reasonable suspicion that a condition of the probationer’s pro *10 bation has been violated, a probation officer, or any law enforcement officer acting on the request of the probation office, may search the probationer’s property, his or her residence, and any place where he or she may be living, and may do so with or without a search warrant, depending on the requirements of law.
Graham signed the probation order, indicating that he had read and understood the conditions of probation.
Although on probation for drug offenses, Graham had previously pled guilty to possessing firearms illegally, and the police connected him with a violent gang in his neighborhood known as the Crown Path Gang. This gang had an ongoing rivalry with a gang from a neighboring area known as the Everton Young Guns.
Graham fell out of compliance with the probation order in late-October 2004, failing to meet the order’s reporting requirements. As a result, Graham’s probation officer, Thomas Todd (Todd), sought and obtained a warrant for his arrest. Todd understood Graham to be living with his mother in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The police attempted to execute the warrant at this location but did not find him there.
Over the next few months, Todd learned that Graham had potentially violated another one of the conditions of his probation, this one requiring him to obey all local, state, and federal laws. Specifically, another probationer told Todd that Graham had “brandished a weapon on him” and a member of the Everton Young Guns told Todd that the gang suspected Graham was responsible for several shootings of their members.
At first unable to locate Graham, in time the authorities began to hone in on his whereabouts. In May 2005, Todd learned from another probation officer that Graham had been “staying at” a house on the corner of Harvard Street and Harvard Park. The address of this building was 18 Harvard Street. After receiving the tip, Todd drove by the house. He recalled having previously seen another member of the Crown Path Gang on the house’s porch. Todd provided the Boston Police Department with this information. The police then informed Todd of a report of a domestic incident at 18 Harvard Street, identifying Graham as the offender. The report stated that Chanice Meadows (Chanice) alleged that she had been threatened by her daughter’s boyfriend, Derek Graham. The report listed Graham’s address as 18 Harvard Street.
Based on this information, a magistrate added the 18 Harvard Street address to the arrest warrant for Graham. Todd again contacted the Boston Police Department and requested that the warrant be executed. Todd informed the police that Graham might be armed, that Graham was subject to a probation search condition, and that a probation officer would be available to perform the probation search if Graham were found. The police informed Todd that the warrant would be executed the next day, a Saturday.
Around 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, police officers went to 18 Harvard Street with the arrest warrant. They showed a picture of Graham to the person who answered the door and were directed to the third-floor apartment. Chanice answered the door to the apartment but denied that Graham was present. The officers informed Chanice that they had a warrant and entered the apartment to look for Graham.
They discovered Graham in the apartment’s rear bedroom. The officers noticed a number of items in the room, including men’s clothes on the floor and in a duffel *11 bag, several boxes of shoes against a wall, men’s toiletries on a bureau next to a bed, and a newspaper clipping and several pictures on a wall in the room. The newspaper clipping concerned the murder of a member of the Everton Young Guns — the Crown Path Gang’s rival gang — and the pictures were of individuals making hand-signs associated with the Crown Path Gang.
The officers arrested Graham, handcuffed him, and brought him to the living room, which was in the front of the apartment. They then contacted the probation officer on duty, who arrived at the apartment fifteen minutes later with copies of Graham’s probation documents. The probation officer asked the officers to search the bedroom where Graham was found. In the course of this search, the police found a sawed off shotgun and ammunition in the drawer of a dresser. The officers also discovered a small safe underneath the bed. Using a knife, an officer opened the safe and discovered various types of ammunition.
B. State court proceeding
Massachusetts charged Graham with possession of a shotgun and ammunition in violation of state law. Graham moved to suppress the evidence. After a suppression hearing, the state court granted Graham’s motion.
The state court concluded that the officers’ entry into the apartment was justified under
Payton
because the officers reasonably believed that Graham resided at the apartment. The court, however, determined that the subsequent search of the room where Graham was found violated Graham’s rights under the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights in the Massachusetts constitution. The court explained that article 14 of the Massachusetts constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in
Commonwealth v. LaFrance,
C. Federal district court proceeding
Subsequent to the state court’s resolution of the suppression issue, the United States charged Graham in federal court with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Like the state court, the federal court concluded that the police entry into the apartment was permissible under Payton. The court ruled in the alternative that the probation order itself allowed the officers to enter the apartment. Unlike the state court, however, the district court concluded that the police did not need a search warrant to search the room where Graham was found.
The district court determined that the police collected the evidence from the bedroom pursuant to a valid probation search. Relying on
United States v. Knights,
The court also stated that an alternative basis for upholding the search, viz., that it was a valid search incident to arrest. Although Graham had been handcuffed and removed from the room prior to the search, the court determined that the areas searched and items seized were within his reach at the time of his arrest.
II.
When reviewing the disposition of a suppression ruling, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its ultimate constitutional conclusion de novo.
United States v. Nascimento,
A. The entry into the apartment
Graham first challenges the initial entry into his apartment, understanding that if we find this entry unjustified the evidence discovered subsequent to it must be suppressed. Graham contends that because he did not “reside” at the apartment, because he was merely an overnight guest, the police needed a search warrant in order to enter the apartment, in addition to the arrest warrant that they procured. He also argues that the entry into the apartment was not permissible under Payton, because the officers did not “reasonably believe” that he resided in the apartment. The government disagrees, contending that the arrest warrant itself, coupled with evidence supporting a reasonable belief that Graham resided in the apartment, was sufficient under Payton to permit entry into the apartment.
Payton
is the lodestar. In that case, the Supreme Court held that police armed with an arrest warrant for a suspect founded on probable cause may enter the dwelling of that suspect when “there is reason to believe [he] is within.”
Whether Graham actually “resided” at the apartment, then, is not dispositive so long as the police “reasonably believed” prior to entry that he (1) resided at the apartment and (2) would be present. See
United States v. Weems,
In determining whether the officers possessed a reasonable belief that Graham resided at the apartment, we examine the basis for that belief.
United States v. Bervaldi, 226
F.3d 1256, 1263 (11th Cir.2000) (examining “the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of law enforcement agents ... viewed in the totality”) (citation omitted);
Lovelock,
Two cases from the Eighth Circuit,
United States v. Clayton,
Similarly, we can safely conclude here that the police possessed a reasonable belief that Graham resided at the apartment. The police based their residence determination on five pieces of information. First, they possessed a police report describing a domestic incident that occurred at the apartment. The report listed Graham as the offender and, critically, listed the apartment as Graham’s address. Second, another probationer told Todd, Graham’s probation officer, that Graham was “staying at” the apartment.
See Risse,
In challenging this conclusion, Graham criticizes individually each piece of information the officers relied on in forming their belief. But, as established above, we examine the information known to the officers in the totality and not in isolation.
See Lovelock,
Graham also points to a litany of facts to support his contention that he did not reside at the apartment. He notes that he did not have a key to the premises, that his clothing was on the floor and in a duffle bag and not put away in closets and dressers, that he had decorated the bedroom with only a few photos and a news clipping, and that both his shotgun and the safe where he kept his ammunition were “readily portable items.” This Monday-morning quarterbacking does nothing to assist our analysis. What the police discovered after they entered the apartment cannot help us determine what the officers could have reasonably believed before entering the apartment. Based on the reasoning provided above, we conclude that the officers were justified in believing Graham resided at the apartment.
Graham also argues that
Payton
does not determine the outcome here, but rather two other Supreme Court cases,
Steag-ald v. United States,
This argument is easily dismissed.
Steagald
and
Olson
merely establish, as relevant to this case, that certain individuals have standing to object to a warrant-less entry and search.
3
Those cases did not establish that those challenges would necessarily be successful where police entered a premises with
both
a warrant for an individual’s arrest and a reasonable belief that the individual resided at the premises entered. In such a case,
Payton
permits entry for the limited purpose of arresting the subject of the arrest warrant.
See Bervaldi,
B. The search of the room
That the officers were justified in entering the apartment does not, however, resolve the issue of whether the evidence should have been suppressed. Although the officers possessed a valid arrest warrant, this warrant only permitted them to seize Graham and did not, standing alone, authorize the search of the bedroom where Graham was found. It is this search that yielded the bounty of evidence that the government introduced against Graham.
The government advances two theories to justify the warrantless search. First, it argues that the search was a valid probation search. The government notes that Graham signed a probation order that allowed law enforcement to search “any place [the probationer may be living]” if the authorities had reasonable suspicion that Graham had violated a condition of his probation. Second, the government contends that even if the search was not a valid probation search, it was a lawful search incident to arrest.
Graham asserts that neither theory of admissibility withstands scrutiny. He contends that the search, in order qualify as a valid probation search, needed to be conducted pursuant to a search warrant. This is because (1) the Massachusetts constitution requires the police, absent a “traditional” exception to the warrant requirement, to obtain a search warrant prior to executing a probation search and (2) the probation order informed him of the search warrant requirement. Graham also disputes the government’s claim that the search was a valid search incident to arrest, because the police searched the apartment after he had been placed in handcuffs and removed from the room.
The government leads with its best punch. We therefore consider first whether the evidence was obtained pursuant to a valid probation search.
Certain relevant principles are well established. To be valid under the Fourth Amendment, a search must be “reasonable.”
Knights,
Where a defendant on probation is challenging a probation search, that fact significantly influences the required balancing. As a conditional releasee, a probationer has a substantially diminished expectation of privacy.
Id.
at 119,
In considering the other side of the balance, that the government has a legitimate interest in searching probationers is beyond question. “ ‘[T]he very assumption of the institution of probation’ is that the probationer ‘is more likely than the ordinary citizen to violate the law.’ ”
Knights,
Neither party disputes that these principles control the constitutional analysis. They do, however, spar over how this analysis is influenced by one unique aspect of this case. The search here occurred in the state of Massachusetts. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in
LaFrance,
concluded that while the Massachusetts constitution permits probationary searches founded on “reasonable suspicion,” police executing such searches must first obtain a search warrant, absent the availability of a traditional exception to the warrant requirement.
On the basis of a reasonable suspicion that a condition of the probationer’s probation has been violated, a probation officer, or any law enforcement officer acting on the request of the probation office, may search the probationer, her property, her residence, and any place where she may be living, and may do so with or without a search warrant depending on the requirements of law.
Id. at 383 (citation omitted). As it turns out, this is the precise condition to which Graham was subject. 6
*17
Graham and the government draw different conclusions about the import of
LaFrcmce
and the probation condition. Graham, as he must, concedes that it does not follow that because a search violates the Massachusetts constitution it necessarily violates the Fourth Amendment. Nevertheless, he argues that because Massachusetts law typically requires a search warrant, and because the search condition in his probation order informed him of this requirement, his expectation of privacy was sufficiently heightened that the Fourth Amendment balance must be struck in his favor. The government, in turn, relies heavily on the uncontroversial principle that “federal law governs the admissibility of evidence in federal prosecutions,” noting that the Supreme Court has concluded that violations of state laws are not per se violations of the constitution.
See Virginia v. Moore,
— U.S.-,
Neither argument perfectly resolves the issue. Graham appears to argue that because conditions of probation shape a defendant’s expectation of privacy, searches in violation of those conditions must violate the Fourth Amendment. This is a somewhat more muted version of the easily dismissed argument that state law controls in federal court. Turning to the government’s arguments, the government’s first salvo, that the Fourth Amendment and not the Massachusetts constitution, controls the analysis, though accurate, somewhat obscures the controlling principles. The Fourth Amendment’s totality of the circumstances test does account for a probationer’s expectation of privacy, which in turn may be shaped to some degree by state law and by what the state has communicated to the probationer. The Supreme Court appears to have established as much in cases like
Knights
and
Samson. Knights,
Ultimately, that Graham was notified that Massachusetts state law requires police to possess a search warrant when conducting a probation search is neither dispositive nor inconsequential in the constitutional analysis. Rather, it is one factor in considering the totality of the circumstances. This conclusion is unremarkable.
See United States v. Chirino,
With the state pronouncements given their proper place in the analysis, the balancing of the relevant interests leads us to conclude that the search in this case was reasonable. As we have noted, the government has a significant interest in monitoring probationers, given their proclivity to both commit and cover up crimes. And Graham’s expectation of privacy was greatly diminished by both his status as a probationer and the probation condition in his probation order that expressly informed him that the government could force him to submit to random drug testing and could search him, his property, his residence or a place he may be living based on reasonable suspicion rather than the more protective probable cause standard. Although Graham’s probation order did further inform him that police would go through the formal process of obtaining a search warrant before executing a search, that the officers failed to do so does not merit suppression considering the important governmental interests at stake and Graham’s inherently diminished expectation of privacy.
Put plainly, we cannot say that where, as here, the police possess reasonable suspicion that a probationer is violating the terms of probation, the Fourth Amendment demands that the police secure a search warrant before executing a probation search.
See Moore,
III. Conclusion
For the reasons provided above, the district court’s ruling is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
. Although a search incident to arrest is an established exception to the warrant requirement, state prosecutors did not argue that the evidence was seized as a result of a search incident to arrest.
. Probation, parole and supervised release are forms of conditional release.
United States v. Weikert,
. In
Steagald,
the police, armed with an arrest warrant for a man named Ricky Lyons, entered a home "based on their belief that [] Lyons might be a guest there."
. In addition to arguing that
Payton
permits officers to enter a place for the purpose of arresting the subject of an arrest warrant, the government contends that Graham (a non
*15
resident) cannot even raise a
Steagald
claim. Both the Supreme Court and this court have left this question open,
see Steagald,
. The Supreme Judicial Court offered the following reasoning for its ruling.
[Requiring officers to possess] a search warrant [issued] on a proper showing of reasonable cause 'is not an undue burden on the probation officer and provides the protection for the probationer guaranteed by the constitutions [State and Federal] ... Upholding the warrant requirements for searches of the probationer's home does not impede the dual goals of probation, protecting the public and rehabilitation.'
. We note that the search condition did inform Graham that he could be searched “with or without a search warrant depending on the requirements of law.” Our resolution of this case does not require us to construe this lan *17 guage as anything other than reflecting the Massachusetts court’s conclusion that war-rantless searches could be justified if a traditional exception to the warrant requirement applied.
. The district court suggested that the police could have conducted a valid probation search even absent any suspicion that Graham had violated the terms of his probation order. It noted, however, that there was ample evidence in the record to support a finding that the police had reasonable suspicion that Graham had done so. As that conclusion has not been challenged, we need not examine whether a suspicionless search would offend the Fourth Amendment.