Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 421

524US2

Unit: $U90

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376

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

nality he will be neglecting the public safety, and if he brings
a revocation petition without enough evidence to sustain it
he can hardly look forward to professional advancement.
R. Prus & J. Stratton, Parole Revocation Decisionmaking:
Private Typings and Ofﬁcial Designations, 40 Federal Proba-
tion 51 (Mar. 1976). And as for competitiveness, one need
only ask whether a parole ofﬁcer would rather leave the
credit to state or local police when a parolee has to be
brought to book.

The Court, of course, does not mean to deny that parole
ofﬁcers are subject to some temptation to skirt the limits on
search and seizure, but it believes that deterrents other than
the evidentiary exclusion will sufﬁce. The Court contends
that parole agents will be kept within bounds by “depart-
mental training and discipline and the threat of damages ac-
tions.” Ante, at 369. The same, of course, might be said of
the police, and yet as to them such arguments are not heard,
perhaps for the same reason that the Court’s suggestion
sounds hollow as to parole ofﬁcers. The Court points to no
speciﬁc departmental training regulation; it cites no instance
of discipline imposed on a Pennsylvania parole ofﬁcer for con-
ducting an illegal search of a parolee’s residence; and, least
surprisingly of all, the majority mentions not a single lawsuit
brought by a parolee against a parole ofﬁcer seeking dam-
In sum, if the police need the
ages for an illegal search.
deterrence of an exclusionary rule to offset the temptations
to forget the Fourth Amendment, parole ofﬁcers need it
quite as much.1

1 While it is true that the Court found in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468
U. S. 1032 (1984), that the deterrence value of applying the exclusionary
rule in deportation proceedings was diminished because the INS “has its
own comprehensive scheme for deterring Fourth Amendment violations
by its ofﬁcers,” id., at 1044, and “alternative remedies for institutional
practices by the INS that might violate Fourth Amendment rights” were
available, id., at 1045, these two factors reﬂected what was at least on the
agency’s books and, in any event, did not stand alone. The Court in that
case found that as a practical matter “it is highly unlikely that any particu-