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Cite as: 524 U. S. 357 (1998)

365

Opinion of the Court

urging application of the rule. United States v. Payner, 447
U. S. 727, 734 (1980).

The costs of excluding reliable, probative evidence are par-
ticularly high in the context of parole revocation proceed-
ings. Parole is a “variation on imprisonment of convicted
criminals,” Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 477 (1972), in
which the State accords a limited degree of freedom in re-
turn for the parolee’s assurance that he will comply with the
In most
often strict terms and conditions of his release.
cases, the State is willing to extend parole only because it is
able to condition it upon compliance with certain require-
ments. The State thus has an “overwhelming interest” in
ensuring that a parolee complies with those requirements
and is returned to prison if he fails to do so.
Id., at 483.
The exclusion of evidence establishing a parole violation,
however, hampers the State’s ability to ensure compliance
with these conditions by permitting the parolee to avoid the
consequences of his noncompliance. The costs of allowing a
parolee to avoid the consequences of his violation are com-
pounded by the fact that parolees (particularly those who
have already committed parole violations) are more likely to
commit future criminal offenses than are average citizens.
See Grifﬁn v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868, 880 (1987).
Indeed,
this is the very premise behind the system of close parole
supervision.

Ibid.

The exclusionary rule, moreover, is incompatible with the
traditionally ﬂexible, administrative procedures of parole
revocation. Because parole revocation deprives the parolee
not “of the absolute liberty to which every citizen is entitled,
but only of the conditional liberty properly dependent on ob-
servance of special parole restrictions,” Morrissey v. Brewer,
supra, at 480, States have wide latitude under the Consti-
tution to structure parole revocation proceedings.5 Most

5 We thus have held that a parolee is not entitled to “the full panoply”
of due process rights to which a criminal defendant is entitled, Morrissey
v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 480 (1972), and that the right to counsel generally