Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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524US2

Unit: $U90

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PENNSYLVANIA BD. OF PROBATION
AND PAROLE v. SCOTT
Souter, J., dissenting

Stewart, The Road to Mapp v. Ohio and Beyond: The Ori-
gins, Development and Future of the Exclusionary Rule in
Search-and-Seizure Cases, 83 Colum. L. Rev. 1365, 1389
(1983). See also Arizona v. Evans, 514 U. S. 1, 18–19, and
n. 1 (1995) (Stevens, J., dissenting); Segura v. United States,
468 U. S. 796, 828, and n. 22 (1984) (Stevens, J., dissenting);
United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 978, and n. 37 (1984)
(Stevens, J., dissenting).

Justice Souter, with whom Justice Ginsburg and

Justice Breyer join, dissenting.

The Court’s holding that the exclusionary rule of Mapp v.
Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961), has no application to parole revo-
cation proceedings rests upon mistaken conceptions of the
actual function of revocation, of the objectives of those who
gather evidence in support of petitions to revoke, and, conse-
quently, of the need to deter violations of the Fourth Amend-
ment that would tend to occur in administering the parole
laws.
In reality a revocation proceeding often serves the
same function as a criminal trial, and the revocation hearing
may very well present the only forum in which the State will
seek to use evidence of a parole violation, even when that
evidence would support an independent criminal charge.
The deterrent function of the exclusionary rule is therefore
implicated as much by a revocation proceeding as by a con-
ventional trial, and the exclusionary rule should be applied
accordingly. From the Court’s conclusion to the contrary, I
respectfully dissent.

This Court has said that the primary purpose of the exclu-
sionary rule “is to deter future unlawful police conduct and
thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment
against unreasonable searches and seizures.” United States
v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338, 347 (1974). Because the exclu-
sionary rule thus “operates as a judicially created remedy
designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally
through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitu-