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The technicalities of the Fourth Amendment have permeated popular culture to such an extent that many Americans are conversant about basic constitutional search and seizure issues.1 Some of that knowledge may have recently become largely obsolete. In United States v. Knights,2 the Supreme Court held that a warrantless search of a probationer's apartment in which the search was based on reasonable suspicion and a condition of probation was that defendant would submit to such searches was reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. While the holding in Knights is wholly consistent with prior cases, the opinion introduces a new straightforward standard of reasonability for warrantless home searches that reflects an increased consideration of society's interest in aggressive prosecution of criminal activity. Critics have complained that modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has been a "vast jumble of judicial pronouncements that is not merely complex and contradictory, but often perverse."3 With Knights, the Court has offered a streamlined Fourth Amendment jurisprudence with a straightforward test to determine whether a search is constitutional.
I. FACTS
Mark Knights was sentenced to summary probation for a drug offense by a California trial court. The probation order Knights signed read, in part, that he would "[s]ubmit his ... person, property, place of residence, vehicle, personal effects, [sic] to search at anytime, with or without a search warrant, warrant of arrest or reasonable cause by any probation officer or law enforcement officer."4 In 1996, Knights and his associate Steven Simoneau were identified as suspects in a vandalism spree against Pacific Gas & Electric (PG & E) facilities in Napa County. The spree began shortly after PG & E filed a theft-ofservices complaint against Knights and discontinued his service for failure to pay. Detective Todd Hancock of the Napa County Sheriff's Department had noticed that the acts of vandalism coincided with Knights's PG & E-related court appearances. On May 24, 1998, a sheriff's deputy had stopped Knights and Simoneau near a PG & E gas line. Knights and Simoneau could not explain their presence in the area. The deputy observed pipes, pieces of chain, tools, and gasoline in the pickup truck. He asked permission to search the vehicle, but was refused. A few days later a pipe bomb was detonated not far...