Ninth Circuit reinstates S.F. sheriff program that allows warrantless searches

San Francisco Chronicle​

23-04-2025

San Francisco sheriff's officers can conduct warrantless searches of criminal defendants who have been released while awaiting trial, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, reversing a judge's decision that the search orders exceed the sheriff's authority and violate the right to privacy.
The search requirements are reasonable safety measures and do not intrude on a judge's authority to order pretrial release, said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court said another of the sheriff's mandates, allowing his office to inform law enforcement agencies elsewhere of a defendant's location, 'helps law enforcement solve crimes quickly both in San Francisco and neighboring jurisdictions.'
The 2-1 ruling was written by Judge Jay Bybee and joined by Judge Carlos Bea, both appointees of President George W. Bush. In dissent, Judge Salvador Mendoza, appointed by President Joe Biden, said the orders reinstated by the court 'infringe upon Californians' fundamental right to pretrial liberty.'
Under the rules set by the sheriff's office, once a Superior Court judge decides that someone charged with a crime can be freed before trial, the defendant must agree to allow officers to search his or her body, vehicle, home and property at any time during release, and to have their location shared with other agencies.
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar halted the searches in February 2024, saying they threatened 'enormous intrusions on personal privacy' and that challengers to the orders were likely to prove that such conditions on release must be approved by a judge rather than imposed by the sheriff's office. Tigar was appointed to the court by President Barack Obama.
In September, Tigar ruled that Sheriff Paul Miyamoto's office had repeatedly violated his injunction by refusing to release defendants who would not agree to warrantless searches, and said Miyamoto and other city officials could be held in contempt of court unless they changed their practices.
Miyamoto responded in October by cutting off new enrollments to his office's ankle-monitoring program, which allows some defendants to be freed before trial if they wore devices allowing their locations to be tracked electronically. The cutoff did not affect those already in the program.
In Wednesday's ruling, the appeals court said allowing sheriff's officers to decide when a defendant should be searched while on pretrial release does not interfere with a judge's authority to decide who should be set free.
'The courts have full control over the individualized determination to release or not release a defendant, specifying which programs to offer, and the conditions the defendant will be subject to while on release,' Bybee wrote. But, he added, 'the courts must accept that (the San Francisco Sheriff's Office) will have its own view of the on-the-ground realities of the programs it is willing or able to supervise.'
Mendoza, in dissent, said Tigar had examined the evidence and found that the sheriff's search requirements interfered with a local judge's determination of the proper conditions of pretrial release.
'Allowing the executive branch — who prosecutes criminal cases — to impose conditions of release is to let the catcher call balls and strikes,' Mendoza wrote.
Alex Barrett-Shorter, spokesperson for City Attorney David Chiu, said the ruling was 'a victory for an important program that allows criminal defendants often facing serious, violent felony charges to be released from jail before trial while protecting the public and crime victims through intensive supervision.'
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Shilpi Agarwal, who represented defendants challenging the sheriff's search requirements, said they would appeal the ruling. They could ask the full appeals court to order a new hearing before a larger panel.
'We disagree with the majority's opinion and maintain that the San Francisco Sheriff's Office exceeded its authority by intruding on the privacy of people released pretrial on electronic monitoring,' Agarwal said.