TRIBLET v. STATE (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] While on probation, Christian Jamar Triblet was charged with a number of offenses following a compliance check of his residence. Following a bench trial, Triblet was convicted of two counts of Level 4 felony unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and one count each of Level 6 felony dealing in marijuana and Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana, and he was adjudicated as a habitual offender. Triblet raises two issues that we consolidate as: Did the trial court abuse its discretion when it admitted into evidence items seized during a warrantless probation search of his residence?

[2] We affirm.

Facts & Procedural History

[3] In October 2022, Triblet pled guilty under Cause No. 49D20-1905-F4-19105 (Cause 19105) to Level 4 felony unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, and the court sentenced him to 1460 days of probation, which included 730 days of home detention. The December 5, 2022 Order of Probation (the Probation Order), which Triblet signed, provided, among other things, that Triblet was to “not commit any criminal offense” and “not possess a firearm ․ or other dangerous weapon or live in a residence where there are such items.” Exhibit Vol. at 19, 97. The Probation Order also contained the following condition:

You shall: ․ waive your right against search and seizure, and shall permit a Probation Officer, or any law enforcement officer acting on a Probation Officer's behalf, to search your person, residence, motor vehicle, or any location where your personal property may be found, to [e]nsure compliance with probation[.]

Id.

[4] Around 10:30 a.m. on April 12, 2023, Probation Officer (PO) Mark Richards conducted a routine compliance check at Triblet's residence.¹ As was PO Richards's usual procedure when conducting compliance checks, he was accompanied by five Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Violence Reduction Team officers. PO Richards knocked on the door of the apartment for several minutes, and no one answered. PO Richards then called Triblet's phone. When Triblet answered, PO Richards told him to open the door. After waiting an additional three to four more minutes outside the door, PO Richard's activated Triblet's GPS siren. Shortly after, Triblet opened the door, and the officers entered the apartment without a warrant. During the period of time that the officers were waiting outside, they heard “a lot of movement inside.” Transcript at 57.

[5] After conducting a protective sweep of the residence and determining that Triblet was alone, the officers began the compliance search, which included a bedroom that contained adult male and female clothing and belongings and was “actively being lived in.” Id. at 49. In that bedroom, officers saw, in plain view, documents “linking” Triblet to the room such as pieces of mail addressed to him and official court documents in his name. Id. at 50. They also observed a live 5.7mm handgun round in a cup on top of a television shelving unit and a handgun holster on a shelf. In the closet, officers located a safe on the floor and a gun box on the shelf. The closet also contained a clear plastic storage unit with drawers. In one of the drawers, officers saw a key that they later used to open the safe, which contained two handguns, a Glock and a Ruger, marijuana, and six boxes of ammunition. In the living room, officers found a digital scale and marijuana residue. Id. at 73. The two handguns were processed for prints and tested at the forensic lab. The Glock contained DNA from two to three people, one of whom was Triblet.

[6] At the residence, Triblet received and waived his Miranda rights, and Sergeant Michael Beatty, while wearing his activated body camera, interviewed Triblet, who stated that the drugs found in the residence were his and that he uses methamphetamine and sells marijuana. Triblet also made statements concerning his Second Amendment rights “being taken away from him” and that he was not “gonna be the only one caught out there without a gun.” Id. at 80.

[7] On April 17, 2023, the State charged Triblet with two counts of Level 4 felony unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, and one count each of Level 6 felony maintaining a common nuisance, Level 6 felony dealing in marijuana, and Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana. The State later filed a habitual offender enhancement. A notice of probation violation was also filed in Cause 19105.

[8] Two days before the April 2024 bench trial, Triblet filed a motion to suppress the items seized at his residence, arguing that the warrantless search violated his state and federal constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure. It was agreed that the motion to suppress would be addressed during trial.

[9] As the various items from Triblet's residence were offered into evidence at trial, Triblet objected and moved to suppress. Triblet acknowledged having signed a waiver to searches as a condition of his probation but argued that under Indiana law, depending on the phrasing of the waiver, reasonable suspicion may still be required and that, here, the officers entered and searched his home without suspicion and that the scope of the search went “way beyond a compliance check[.]” Transcript at 51. The trial court overruled the objections and admitted the various items into evidence. Thereafter, Sergeant Beatty's body cam interview of Triblet was admitted into evidence without objection.

[10] The trial court found Triblet not guilty of maintaining a common nuisance and guilty of the remaining counts, and adjudged Triblet to be a habitual offender. Following a combined sentencing hearing on the probation violation and the current charges, the court revoked Triblet's probation in Cause 19105 and imposed a fourteen-year aggregate sentence for the four convictions to be served consecutive to the sentence in Cause 19105. Triblet now appeals.

Discussion & Decision

[11] Triblet challenges the trial court's decision to admit, over his objections, evidence obtained from the search of his residence, which he characterizes as an unlawful search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. A trial court's decision to admit evidence after a motion to suppress and objection at trial is reviewed for an abuse of the trial court's discretion. Carpenter v. State, 18 N.E.3d 998, 1001 (Ind. 2014). We review rulings on admissibility of evidence for abuse of discretion and reverse only if a ruling is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances and the error affects a party's substantial rights. Id. “ ‘[T]he ultimate determination of the constitutionality of a search or seizure is a question of law that we consider de novo.’ ” State v. Terrell, 40 N.E.3d 501, 505 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015) (quoting Carpenter, 18 N.E.3d at 1001). In arguing that the seized evidence should not have been admitted, Triblet contends “there was no evidence that a reasonable, articulable suspicion existed either that he had violated his probation or committed a crime.”² Appellant's Brief at 10.

[12] It is well established that placement under either probation or a community corrections program is a matter of grace and a conditional liberty that is a favor, not a right. State v. Vanderkolk, 32 N.E.3d 775, 777 (Ind. 2015) (quotations omitted). In Vanderkolk, our Supreme Court recognized that “Indiana probationers and community corrections participants who have consented or been clearly informed that the conditions of their probation or community corrections program unambiguously authorize warrantless and suspicionless searches, may thereafter be subject to such searches during the period of their probationary or community corrections status.” Id. at 779.

[13] After Vanderkolk, a majority of this court in Hodges v. State, 54 N.E.3d 1055 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016), rejected Hodges's challenge to the warrantless search of his garage as part of a probation compliance check, finding that he had signed a search and seizure waiver provision as a condition of his probation. Relying on our Supreme Court's “broad holding” in Vanderkolk, the Hodges majority opined that “[t]he crux of the Vanderkolk holding is that a probation search need not be supported by reasonable suspicion and may be predicated solely upon a valid search condition contained in the conditions of probation.”³ Id. at 1059, 1060; see also Terrell, 40 N.E.3d at 506-07 (rejecting probationer Terrell's challenge to the constitutionality of a compliance search by a probation officer during a home visit and finding that he had waived his search and seizure rights as a condition of his probation).

[14] Five years after Hodges, our Supreme Court in State v. Ellis, 167 N.E.3d 285 (Ind. 2021), examined the following provision in a community corrections contract – substantially the same as Triblet's probation conditions – and determined that the provision's “broad language” clearly informs defendants that they were waiving their rights against searches and seizures:

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, 288. The Ellis Court held that such language informed defendants that they were “waiving all of their rights against searches and seizures” and that additional language specifying that the search may be conducted without reasonable suspicion is unnecessary. Id. at 288 (emphasis in original).

[15] Here, Triblet signed the Probation Order in which he agreed to waive his right against search and seizure and to allow searches to ensure his compliance with probation. We find that, as in Ellis and Hodges, Triblet was clearly informed that he was consenting to warrantless and suspicionless searches.⁴ Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted into evidence the items discovered during the probation compliance search of his residence.⁵

Judgment affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Probation had not received any tips or otherwise been informed that Triblet was not in compliance.

2.   Triblet does not challenge the scope of the search on appeal.

3.   Judge Vaidik concurred in result. She opined that Vanderkolk did not bar all probationers from raising lack-of-reasonable-suspicion claims but, rather, only those probationers who had been placed on home detention. However, she concluded that because reasonable suspicion existed to search Hodges's garage, his challenge to the search failed.

4.   We recognize that the Ellis Court noted that “[b]ecause the case before us involves home detention, we limit our holding here to that context[.]” Id. at 286 n.1. To the extent that Triblet argues that Ellis and Vanderkolk do not apply to him because, unlike those defendants, he was not on home detention, the record indicates otherwise. That is, the trial court's December 2022 sentencing order and the Probation Order of the same date reflect that Triblet was sentenced to 1460 days of probation that included 730 days of home detention, and Triblet signed the probation department's “Electronic Monitoring Conditions” form, initialing those conditions that pertained to home detention. Exhibits Vol. at 22. We further observe that Triblet was wearing a GPS electronic monitor at the time of the April 2023 search. The record thus establishes that Triblet was a probationer on home detention at the time of the search. And even if he was not, our court in both Hodges and Terrell rejected the challenges of probationers not on home detention as each had signed a search and seizure waiver provision as a condition of his probation. Moreover, the Ellis Court discussed Hodges in length and expressed no disapproval.

5.   In addition to challenging the search as lacking reasonable suspicion, Triblet asserts that “the condition of probation under which the search was conducted was not voluntarily agreed to and was not reasonably related to his rehabilitation.” Appellant's Brief at 11. We agree with the State that these arguments have been waived as they were not raised before the trial court. See Hochstetler v. State, 215 N.E.3d 365, 376 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023) (“It is well-established that an appellant may not raise issues for the first time on appeal and that failure to raise an issue in the trial court results in waiver of an issue for our consideration.”).

Altice, Chief Judge.

Vaidik, J. and Scheele, J., concur.