COURT ALLOWS PAROLEE SEARCH FOR NO REASON

Law Enforcement: Justices Say Allowing Random Checks Would Discourage Crime.

San Francisco-Law-enforcement officers can search any of California's
108,000 adults on parole, or their homes,without having to show a
reason to suspect wrongdoing, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The 4-3 ruling overturned a unanimous 1986 decision that had allowed
parolees to be searched based on "reasonable suspicion" of crime or
parole violation. For most other Americans, the Constitution requires
a warrant and probable cause of a crime, a more stringent standard
than reasonable suspicion, to authorize a police search.

The court majority said allowing random searches of parolees would
discourage crime. Dissenting Justice Joyce Kennard said the ruling
allowed searches of "private homes in neighborhoods throughout the
state, by day or by night, for any reason or no reason," if a parolee
lived there.

But Deputy Attorney General Joel Carey said people who live with
parolees or probationers "suffer, by definition, a lesser expectation
of privacy." He said the ruling doesn't allow searches of another
resident's body, clothes or bedrooms, only the parolee's quarters and
common areas of the home.

Parolees are felons who have completed their state prison sentences
and undergo supervision for three to five years after release. They
must report regularly to parole officers, can be searched without a
warrant and can be returned to prison for the remainder of their
parole period for violating parole conditions, which typically forbid
drug use and all criminal conduct.

The case involved Rudolfo Reyes of Woodlake in Tulare County, who was
in the last year of a three-year parole term in February 1995 when his
parole officer got an anonymous telephone tip about possible drug use
and other misconduct.

Police saw Reyes in his yard that evening, found no sign that he was
under the influence of drugs, but searched his shed and found a small
amount of methamphetamine. After unsuccessfully challenging the
search, he pleaded guilty to possession and was sentenced to seven
years in prison.

A state appeals court overturned the conviction, rejecting a Superior
Court judge's finding that the search was based on reasonable
suspicion of wrongdoing, and ruling that the search was therefore
illegal, based on the state Supreme Court's 1986 decision requiring
reasonable suspicion for a parole search.

In reinstating Reyes' conviction, the high court noted that it had
already approved searches without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing
for people convicted of less serious crimes and placed on probation
instead of going to jail. Adults must consent to such searches as a
condition of probation, but juveniles, the subject of a 1994 ruling,
have no right to refuse consent.

Privacy right should be no broader for an adult parolee, said the
opinion by Justice Janice Rogers Brown.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry