Officers Only Need Reasonable Suspicion to Search People on Probation

In State v. Anderson, the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s ruling that the search of a man on probation was permissible, based on both 2013 Wisconsin Act 79 and the totality of the circumstances.

Wisconsin has a law that allows for a lower standard for searching someone who is on probation. Usually, the standard for conducting a search is that the officer must have probable cause. Under Act 79, officers need only have reasonable suspicion that a crime is being committed. The reasonable suspicion standard is a lower one. Normally, the reasonable suspicion standard is the one used to allow officers to perform a limited investigative stop. 

One of the major issues in the case was whether the officer actually knew of Anderson’s probationary status before he conducted the search. The officer had claimed that he knew of the status before the search without volunteering much more about what he knew. The officer did a records search and found the date that Anderson was sentenced to probation. He did not necessarily know how long Anderson was on probation for and whether he was actually on probation at the time of the search.

There Were Numerous Factors that Gave Reasonable Suspicion When Taken Together

Finding that the reasonable suspicion standard applies because of Act 79, the court then proceeded to analyze whether there was reasonable suspicion for the actual investigative stop. Here, there were four factors that supported the findings of reasonable suspicion:

• There was an informant’s tip that Anderson was selling drugs in a certain location (informant’s tips are important in finding reasonable suspicion)
• The same officer had previously arrested Anderson in the past
• Anderson was present in an area that was known as a high drug-trafficking area
• Anderson was behaving in a suspicious manner, looking away from the officer and riding down the alley away from the officer. 

Although none of these factors on their own are enough to reach the probable suspicion standard, all of them together were enough to support a warrantless search of the defendant. 

Under Wisconsin law, fewer legal rights if you are on probation. That is something that you need to keep in mind before you plead guilty to a crime. It may be harder to suppress evidence that was seized from you in a search when you are on probation. If the search was based on a reasonable suspicion standard, it may still be possible for you to successfully file a motion to suppress the evidence. It is by no means automatic that a court will always uphold a search conducted pursuant to that standard.

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