Does a probationer have a right to resist a warrantless search?

"[A] probationer who has been granted the privilege of probation on condition that he submit at any time to a warrantless search may have no reasonable expectation of traditional Fourth Amendment protection." (People v. Mason (1971) 5 Cal.3d 759, 765, fn. omitted, disapproved on another ground in People v. Lent (1975) 15 Cal.3d 481, 486, fn. 1.) When a defendant agrees to permit warrantless searches in order to obtain probation rather than a prison term, the defendant voluntarily waives whatever claim of privacy he might otherwise have had. (People v. Bravo (1987) 43 Cal.3d 600, 607.) "We read the consent . . . as a complete waiver of that probationer's Fourth Amendment rights, save only his right to object to harassment or searches conducted in an unreasonable manner." (Id. at p. 607.)

Defendant does not complain that any arbitrary or harassing searches have been conducted; she simply complains about the imposition of an unlimited warrantless search term. If defendant believed the conditions of probation were more onerous than the potential sentence, she could have refused probation and chosen to serve the sentence. (People v. Mason, supra, 5 Cal.3d at p. 764.) She did not. Instead, her attorney objected to the unlimited nature of the condition after it had been imposed by the court, without proffering an alternative search condition that counsel believed was more reasonable. Moreover, narrowing the search condition to evidence of anything obtained by fraud or theft, as defendant suggests on appeal, is the equivalent of an unlimited search condition given that the list of items which may be obtained via theft or fraud and hidden in her home or on her person is endless.