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The Burning Question

© Gina D. Gipson

Mark James Knights was on probation in California for a drug offense. As a condition of his probation, he was required to "submit to a search at anytime with or without a search or arrest warrant or reasonable cause by any probation or law enforcement officer (U.S. vs. Knights, 00-1260). So at this point, I'm wondering what kind of bozo would surrender his Fourth Amendment right to privacy in his own home. The answer? An arrogant bozo, I guess (it will make more sense later, hopefully).

In this case, Mr. Knights signed, with full knowledge and understanding and consent, to bypass asserting his right to privacy. Such is it.

Three days after he was placed on probation, an electric company's transformer and telecommunications vault were broken into and torched. There were some 30+ incidents of shenanigans on record. Interestingly, they all seemed to coincide with Mr. Knights's court dates concerning some theft of services from the electric company. Yes, he was a suspect, along with a friend (Steven Simoneau)(Knights, 00-1260). But law enforcement could never catch him in the act.

Then one night a detective on the case decided to have a little stakeout of Mr. Knights's home. He saw Mr. Simoneau's truck in front of Knights's home. At some point, he looked in the truck and saw some explosive-type materials: a gas can, molotov cocktail and two brass padlocks that fit the description of those removed from the electric company's vault (Knights, 00-1260).

That was reason enough for the surveilling detective to search Mr. Knights's home to see if he had any goodies. He did: a detonation cord, ammunition, liquid chemicals, instruction manuals on chemistry and electrical circuitry, bolt cutters, telephone pole-climbing spurs, drug paraphernalia and my personal favorite, a brass padlock stamped with the name of the much-victimized electric company (Knights, 00-1260). That gun is a-smoking, and Knights was bigtime busted.

Subsequently, the feds indicted him for arson, possession of an unregistered destructive device and for being a felon in possession of ammo - lots of ammo. See, this is so blatantly arrogant, in my constitutionally protected opinion. He's going to court on a regular basis, and on probation no less. Yet, he's out and about committing mayhem. Deep.

So Knights was understandably less than thrilled with this turn of events (after all, he surely thought he would keep getting away with this mess). He proceeded to challenge the feds in anyway he could.

He filed a motion to suppress the evidence retrieved by the detective. The District Court granted it because "although the detective had reasonable suspicion to believe Knights was involved with incendiary materials, the search was for 'investigatory' rather than 'probationary' purposes.(Knights, 00-1260)." The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that finding.