Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 424

524US2

Unit: $U90

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

379

Souter, J., dissenting

ago when we observed in Morrissey v. Brewer that a parole
revocation proceeding “is often preferred to a new prosecu-
tion because of the procedural ease of recommitting the indi-
vidual on the basis of a lesser showing by the State.”
408
U. S., at 479; see also Cohen & Gobert, § 8.06, at 386 (“Favor-
ing the [exclusionary] rule’s applicability is the fact that the
revocation proceeding, often based on the items discovered
in the search, is used in lieu of a criminal trial”).

The reasons for this tendency to skip any new prosecution
are obvious.
If the conduct in question is a crime in its own
right, the odds of revocation are very high. Since time on
the street before revocation is not subtracted from the bal-
ance of the sentence to be served on revocation, Morrissey
v. Brewer, 408 U. S., at 480, the balance may well be long
enough to render recommitment the practical equivalent of
a new sentence for a separate crime. And all of this may
be accomplished without shouldering the burden of proof
beyond a reasonable doubt; hence the obvious popularity of
revocation in place of new prosecution.

The upshot is that without a suppression remedy in revo-
cation proceedings, there will often be no inﬂuence capable
of deterring Fourth Amendment violations when parole rev-
ocation is a possible response to new crime. Suppression in
the revocation proceeding cannot be looked upon, then, as
furnishing merely incremental or marginal deterrence over
and above the effect of exclusion in criminal prosecution.
Instead, it will commonly provide the only deterrence to un-
constitutional conduct when the incarceration of parolees is
sought, and the reasons that support the suppression remedy
in prosecution therefore support it in parole revocation.

Because I would apply the exclusionary rule to evidence
offered in revocation hearings, I would afﬁrm the judgment
in this case. Scott gave written consent to warrantless
searches; the form he signed provided that he consented “to
the search of my person, property and residence, without a
warrant by agents of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation