Riley, J.
Appellant-Plaintiff, State of Indiana (State), appeals the trial court’s grant of Appellee-Defendant, Lamar Fox’s (Fox), motion to suppress.
We reverse.
The State presents us with one issue, which we restate as: Whether the trial court’s grant of Fox’s motion to suppress was contrary to law because he waived his Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 11 rights as a condition of his home detention.
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The State contends that the trial court, relying on Micheau, improperly considered the source of the investigation which resulted in the initial warrantless search of Fox’s hotel room and that Fox’s “agreement to waive his constitutional rights against search and seizure as a condition of his home detention makes it irrelevant what source [MCCC] relied upon as a basis for conducting a search of his hotel room.” (Appellant’s Br. p. 11). Therefore, the State argues that the trial court’s suppression ruling was contrary to law. The trial court’s suppression determination was based on this court’s decision in Micheau, and therefore we begin our analysis with that decision.
Micheau was on parole in Indiana due to a drug conviction in Texas. Micheau, 893 N.E.2d at 1057. Based on an anonymous tip that Micheau might be manufacturing and selling methamphetamine, his parole officer, escorted by law enforcement who had also received the tip, performed a home visit which provided probable cause for a search warrant that uncovered methamphetamine and evidence of methamphetamine production, among other things. Id. at 1057-58. Micheau moved to suppress this evidence, arguing that the search of his residence had been without probable cause, a search warrant, valid consent, or exigent circumstances. Id. at 1058. After the denial of his motion to suppress and eventual conviction on multiple charges, Micheau appealed, arguing that the challenged search was “an investigatory search that was under the guise of a probationary search.” Id. at 1059. The Micheau court observed that a probationer still enjoys a limited protection of his privacy interests, the Fourth Amendment requires the search of a probationer’s home to be reasonable, and a “probation search cannot be a mere subterfuge enabling the police to avoid obtaining a search warrant.” Id. Therefore, the court held that the State is required to show that any warrantless search of a probationer was a true probationary search, not an investigatory search and that any true probationary search was reasonable. Id. at 1060. The Micheau court concluded that the search of Micheau’s home was a true parole search and that the search was reasonable. Id. In her concurring opinion, Judge Robb observed Micheau’s case illustrated the “murky line” between parole and investigatory searches because the same conduct may be both a parole violation and a new crime. Id. at 1068. However, significantly for our present purposes, Micheau did not involve any waiver executed by Micheau of his constitutional protections against searches and seizures as part of his parole.
Nearly thirteen years after Micheau was decided, our supreme court handed down State v. Ellis, 167 N.E.3d 285 (Ind. 2021). Ellis was placed on home detention through MCCC and executed a home detention agreement containing the following search provision: You waive your right against search and seizure, and shall permit MCCC staff, or any law enforcement officer acting on MCCC’s behalf, to search your person, residence, motor vehicle, or any location where your personal property may be found, to [e]nsure compliance with the requirements of community corrections. Id. at 286… The Ellis court held that a home detention contract with “broad language” stating that a defendant “waives all rights against search and seizure” unambiguously informs a defendant that he is waiving all his rights, including the right against search and seizure absent reasonable suspicion. Id. at 288-89. Because Ellis’ contract contained such a waiver, our supreme court held that he had validly waived his rights under the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 11 and reversed the trial court’s suppression ruling. Id. at 289.
Here, Fox executed a home detention contract which contained a waiver provision which, if anything, is even more detailed in what rights he was waiving than the contract involved in Ellis, as Fox’s contract specifically provided that he waived his “rights under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, as well as Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution, regarding search and seizure of your person or effects.” (Exh. Vol. p. 3). In light of Ellis, we conclude that, due to Fox’s valid waiver of his constitutional rights, Jones was not required to have any degree of suspicion to initiate the home visit on Fox’s hotel room and was permitted to enter and search Fox’s hotel room regardless of IMPD’s involvement.
On appeal, Fox does not address the effect of his waiver through the search provision or contest its validity. What is more, the rationale for the Micheau decision and concurring opinion, namely the vindication of a probationer’s limited, yet still existent, Fourth Amendment protections, simply does not apply where those rights have been waived. Consent is one of the well-established exceptions to the warrant requirement. Cox, 160 N.E.3d at 560. Accordingly, we conclude that the State has demonstrated that the trial court improperly ignored Fox’s waiver of his Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 11 rights and relied upon distinguishable precedent.
Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the trial court’s suppression ruling was contrary to law.
Reversed.
Robb, J. and Molter, J. concur