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LAW CENTER

Court OKs random searches of parolees

By Bill Mears
CNN Washington Bureau

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Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said parolees need "intense supervision."

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police may randomly search criminal parolees, continuing the deference it has shown law enforcement since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The 6-3 ruling keeps in place a California law allowing such searches even when there is no clear evidence or suspicion of wrongdoing.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas noted, "As the recidivism rates demonstrate, most parolees are ill prepared to handle the pressures of reintegration. Thus most parolees require intense supervision."

He added, "A requirement that searches be based on individualized suspicion would undermine the state's ability to effectively supervise parolees and protect the public from criminal acts by reoffenders."

Upon their release, California parolees must sign a requirement allowing police searches during their supervision. Failure or refusal to sign means they must stay behind bars.

Thomas rejected complaints that parolees are being singled out and suffer an unconstitutional diminished right of privacy.

The ruling was supported by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Samuel Alito.

The case involves Donald Samson, paroled in 2003 after a firearms felony conviction. A San Bruno police officer knew Samson was on parole when he observed him walking down a street.

The officer, after determining there were no outstanding warrants on Samson, began a search of him.

Methamphetamine was found in a pocket and Samson went back to prison for seven years.

Dissenting was Justice John Paul Stevens, who acknowledged parolees do not have protection "as robust as that afforded ordinary citizens."

But, he wrote, the court's past decisions do not support "a regime of suspicionless searches."

The Samson case was one of two search-and-seizure appeals from California argued this term. The justices in March unanimously allowed to stand the conviction of a man who bought video showing minors engaged in sex acts.

The Bush administration Justice Department and law enforcement agencies around the country have asked the courts for greater powers to conduct searches of homes and cars, along the borders, and at sobriety and neighborhood crime checkpoints.

The federal government in some cases has raised the increased threat of domestic terrorism since 9/11 as a reason for more crime-fighting discretion.

The majority-conservative Supreme Court has generally been supportive of such efforts, but has not been shy about limiting such powers when the justices felt they overstep constitutional boundaries.

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