Parolees -- Searches and Seizures

The big case at the United States Supreme Court level is Samson v California, 547 US 843. In that case, an officer stopped a parolee without reasonable suspicion. The officer then searched the parolee and discovered meth in a cigarette package.

The United States Supreme Court ruled that the search was constitutional and the evidence admissible because:
-- parolees have an extremely low expectation of privacy – not much higher than if they were (still) in prison.
-- the conditions for parole, which the parolee signs, states that parolees must consent to searches.

My opinion about different situations dealing with parolees:

The parolee who is a pedestrian
Officers may normally stop a parolee in the street and search him without reasonable suspicion. See Samson above.

The parolee who is in his home
No one knows yet if officers may enter a parolee’s home without reasonable suspicion – or whether a parole officer must initiate the search.

The parolee in a car
Normally, I would say that if an officer can stop a parolee in on a sidewalk with reasonable reasonable suspicion, he can also stop him in a car. But in this instance, I just don’t know. We’ll have to wait for a ruling in Arizona. Meanwhile I think you should try to find a traffic offense. I think that once you have a legitimate traffic offense, you can search the parolee. Try to get consent to search the car as I’m not sure what the court will say about that.

Probably most important is that officers read the parole agreements themselves. These conditions for parole are usually boilerplate and impose relatively the same conditions on all parolees.

Best –

DA