SAMSON v. CALIFORNIA

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843 OCTOBER TERM, 2005
Syllabus
SAMSON v. CALIFORNIA
certiorari to the court of appeal of california,
first appellate district
No. 04–9728. Argued February 22, 2006—Decided June 19, 2006
Pursuant to a California statute—which requires every prisoner eligible
for release on state parole to “agree in writing to be subject to search
or seizure by a parole officer or other peace officer . . . , with or without
a search warrant and with or without cause”—and based solely on peti
tioner’s parolee status, an officer searched petitioner and found metham
phetamine. The trial court denied his motions to suppress that evi
dence, and he was convicted of possession. Affirming, the State Court
of Appeal held that suspicionless searches of parolees are lawful under
California law and that the search in this case was reasonable under
the Fourth Amendment because it was not arbitrary, capricious, or
harassing.
Held: The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit a police officer from con
ducting a suspicionless search of a parolee. Pp. 848–857.
(a) The “totality of the circumstances” must be examined to deter
mine whether a search is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
United States v. Knights, 534 U. S. 112, 118. Reasonableness “is deter
mined by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which [the search]
intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to
which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental inter
ests.” Id., at 118–119. Applying this approach in Knights, the Court
found reasonable the warrantless search of a probationer’s apartment
based on reasonable suspicion and a probation condition authorized by
California law. In evaluating the degree of intrusion into Knights’ pri
vacy, the Court found his probationary status “salient,” id., at 118, ob
serving that probation is on a continuum of possible punishments and
that probationers “do not enjoy ‘the absolute liberty’ ” of other citizens,
id., at 119. It also found probation searches necessary to promote legit
imate governmental interests of integrating probationers back into the
community, combating recidivism, and protecting potential victims.
Balancing those interests, the intrusion was reasonable. However, be
cause the search was predicated on both the probation search condition
and reasonable suspicion, the Court did not address the reasonableness
of a search solely predicated upon the probation condition. Pp. 848–850.
(b) Parolees, who are on the “continuum” of state-imposed punish
ments, have fewer expectations of privacy than probationers, because
parole is more akin to imprisonment than probation is. “The essence

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844 SAMSON v. CALIFORNIA
Syllabus
of parole is release from prison, before the completion of sentence, on
the condition that the prisoner abide by certain rules during the balance
of the sentence.” Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 477. California’s
system is consistent with these observations. An inmate electing to
complete his sentence out of physical custody remains in the Depart
ment of Corrections’ legal custody for the remainder of his term and
must comply with the terms and conditions of his parole. The extent
and reach of those conditions demonstrate that parolees have severely
diminished privacy expectations by virtue of their status alone. Addi
tionally, as in Knights, the state law’s parole search condition was
clearly expressed to petitioner, who signed an order submitting to the
condition and thus was unambiguously aware of it. Examining the to
tality of the circumstances, petitioner did not have an expectation of
privacy that society would recognize as legitimate. The State’s inter
ests, by contrast, are substantial. A State has an “ ‘overwhelming in
terest’ ” in supervising parolees because they “are more likely to commit
future criminal offenses.” Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole
v. Scott, 524 U. S. 357, 365. Similarly, a State’s interests in reducing
recidivism, thereby promoting reintegration and positive citizenship
among probationers and parolees, warrant privacy intrusions that would
not otherwise be tolerated under the Fourth Amendment. The Amend
ment does not render States powerless to address these concerns effec
tively. California’s 60- to 70-percent recidivism rate demonstrates that
most parolees are ill prepared to handle the pressures of reintegration
and require intense supervision. The State Legislature has concluded
that, given the State’s number of parolees and its high recidivism rate,
an individualized suspicion requirement would undermine the State’s
ability to effectively supervise parolees and protect the public from
criminal acts by reoffenders. Contrary to petitioner’s argument, the
fact that some States and the Federal Government require a level of
individualized suspicion before searching a parolee is of little relevance
in determining whether California’s system is drawn to meet the State’s
needs and is reasonable, taking into account a parolee’s substantially
diminished expectation of privacy. Nor is there merit to the argument
that California’s law grants discretion without procedural safeguards.
The concern that the system gives officers unbridled discretion to con
duct searches, thereby inflicting dignitary harms that arouse strong re
sentment in parolees and undermine their ability to reintegrate into
society, is belied by the State’s prohibition on arbitrary, capricious, or
harassing searches. And petitioner’s concern that the law frustrates
reintegration efforts by permitting intrusions into the privacy interests
of third persons is unavailing because that concern would arise under a
suspicion-based system as well. Pp. 850–857.
Affirmed.

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845 Cite as: 547 U. S. 843 (2006)
Syllabus
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Scalia, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Alito, JJ., joined. Stevens, J.,
filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter and Breyer, JJ., joined, post,
p. 857.
Robert A. Long argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs was Martin Kassman.
Ronald E. Niver, Deputy Attorney General of California,
argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief
were Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson,
Chief Assistant Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros,
State Solicitor General, Donald E. De Nicola, Deputy Solici
tor General, Gerald A. Engler, Senior Assistant Attorney
General, Martin S. Kaye, Supervising Deputy Attorney Gen
eral, and Doris A. Calandra, Deputy Attorney General.
Jonathan L. Marcus argued the cause for the United
States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on
the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attor
ney General Fisher, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, and
Deborah Watson.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American
Civil Liberties Union et al. by Graham A. Boyd, Steven R. Shapiro, and
Alan Schlosser; for the California Public Defenders Association et al. by
Michael C. McMahon and Kenneth I. Clayman; for Citizens United for
Rehabilitation of Errants by Robert Weisberg; and for the National Associ
ation of Criminal Defense Lawyers by Carter G. Phillips, Jeffrey T. Green,
and Pamela Harris.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of
Pennsylvania et al. by Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., Attorney General of Penn
sylvania, Howard G. Hopkirk, Senior Deputy Attorney General, and John
G. Knorr III, Chief Deputy Attorney General, and by the Attorneys Gen
eral for their respective States as follows: Mike Beebe of Arkansas, John
W. Suthers of Colorado, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden
of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Gregory D. Stumbo of Kentucky, J.
Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Jim Hood
of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, George J. Chanos
of Nevada, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Hardy Myers of Oregon,
Lawrence E. Long of South Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Greg
Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, Rob McKenna of Washington,
Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyo

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846 SAMSON v. CALIFORNIA
Opinion of the Court
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
California law provides that every prisoner eligible for re
lease on state parole “shall agree in writing to be subject to
search or seizure by a parole officer or other peace officer at
any time of the day or night, with or without a search war
rant and with or without cause.” Cal. Penal Code Ann.
§ 3067(a) (West 2000). We granted certiorari to decide
whether a suspicionless search, conducted under the author
ity of this statute, violates the Constitution. We hold that
it does not.
I
In September 2002, petitioner Donald Curtis Samson was
on state parole in California, following a conviction for being
a felon in possession of a firearm. On September 6, 2002,
Officer Alex Rohleder of the San Bruno Police Department
observed petitioner walking down a street with a woman and
a child. Based on a prior contact with petitioner, Officer
Rohleder was aware that petitioner was on parole and be
lieved that he was facing an at-large warrant. Accordingly,
Officer Rohleder stopped petitioner and asked him whether
he had an outstanding parole warrant. Petitioner re
sponded that there was no outstanding warrant and that he
“was in good standing with his parole agent.” Brief for
Petitioner 4. Officer Rohleder confirmed, by radio dispatch,
that petitioner was on parole and that he did not have an
outstanding warrant. Nevertheless, pursuant to Cal. Penal
Code Ann. § 3067(a) (West 2000) and based solely on petition
ming; for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al. by Wayne
W. Schmidt, James P. Manak, Richard Weintraub, and Bernard J. Farber;
and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger and
Charles L. Hobson.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for Los Angeles County by Scott Wm.
Davenport; and for Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley
by Mr. Cooley, pro se, Lael R. Rubin, Brentford J. Ferreira, and Phyllis
C. Asayama.

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er’s status as a parolee, Officer Rohleder searched petitioner.
During the search, Officer Rohleder found a cigarette box in
petitioner’s left breast pocket. Inside the box he found a
plastic baggie containing methamphetamine.
The State charged petitioner with possession of metham
phetamine pursuant to Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann.
§ 11377(a) (West 1991). The trial court denied petitioner’s
motion to suppress the methamphetamine evidence, finding
that Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 3067(a) (West 2000) authorized
the search and that the search was not “arbitrary or capri
cious.” App. 62–63 (Proceedings on Motion to Supress). A
jury convicted petitioner of the possession charge, and the
trial court sentenced him to seven years’ imprisonment.
The California Court of Appeal affirmed. Relying on
People v. Reyes, 19 Cal. 4th 743, 968 P. 2d 445 (1998), the
court held that suspicionless searches of parolees are lawful
under California law; that “ ‘[s]uch a search is reasonable
within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment as long as it
is not arbitrary, capricious or harassing’ ”; and that the
search in this case was not arbitrary, capricious, or harassing.
No. A102394 (Ct. App. Cal., 1st App. Dist., Oct. 14, 2004),
App. 12–14.
We granted certiorari, 545 U. S. 1165 (2005), to answer a
variation of the question this Court left open in United
States v. Knights, 534 U. S. 112, 120, n. 6 (2001)—whether a
condition of release can so diminish or eliminate a released
prisoner’s reasonable expectation of privacy that a suspicion
less search by a law enforcement officer would not offend
the Fourth Amendment.1 Answering that question in the
affirmative today, we affirm the judgment of the California
Court of Appeal.
1 Knights, 534 U. S., at 120, n. 6 (“We do not decide whether the proba
tion condition so diminished, or completely eliminated, Knights’ reasonable
expectation of privacy . . . that a search by a law enforcement officer
without any individualized suspicion would have satisfied the reasonable
ness requirement of the Fourth Amendment”).

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II
“[U]nder our general Fourth Amendment approach” we
“examin[e] the totality of the circumstances” to determine
whether a search is reasonable within the meaning of the
Fourth Amendment. Id., at 118 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Whether a search is reasonable “is determined
by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes
upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree
to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate gov
ernmental interests.” Id., at 118–119 (internal quotation
marks omitted).
We recently applied this approach in United States v.
Knights. In that case, California law required Knights, as
a probationer, to “ ‘[s]ubmit his . . . person, property, place of
residence, vehicle, personal effects, to search at anytime,
with or without a search warrant, warrant of arrest or rea
sonable cause by any probation officer or law enforcement
officer.’ ” Id., at 114 (brackets in original). Several days
after Knights had been placed on probation, police suspected
that he had been involved in several incidents of arson and
vandalism. Based upon that suspicion and pursuant to the
search condition of his probation, a police officer conducted a
warrantless search of Knights’ apartment and found arson
and drug paraphernalia. Id., at 115–116.
We concluded that the search of Knights’ apartment was
reasonable. In evaluating the degree of intrusion into
Knights’ privacy, we found Knights’ probationary status
“salient,” id., at 118, observing that “[p]robation is ‘one
point . . . on a continuum of possible punishments ranging
from solitary confinement in a maximum-security facility to
a few hours of mandatory community service,’ ” id., at 119
(quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868, 874 (1987)).
Cf. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517, 530 (1984) (holding that
prisoners have no reasonable expectation of privacy). We
further observed that, by virtue of their status alone, proba
tioners “ ‘do not enjoy “the absolute liberty to which every

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citizen is entitled,” ’ ” Knights, supra, at 119 (quoting Griffin,
supra, at 874, in turn quoting Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S.
471, 480 (1972)), justifying the “impos[ition] [of] reasonable
conditions that deprive the offender of some freedoms en
joyed by law-abiding citizens,” Knights, supra, at 119. We
also considered the facts that Knights’ probation order
clearly set out the probation search condition, and that
Knights was clearly informed of the condition. See 534
U. S., at 119. We concluded that under these circumstances,
Knights’ expectation of privacy was significantly diminished.
See id., at 119–120.
We also concluded that probation searches, such as the
search of Knights’ apartment, are necessary to the promotion
of legitimate governmental interests. Noting the State’s
dual interest in integrating probationers back into the com
munity and combating recidivism, see id., at 120–121, we
credited the “ ‘assumption’ ” that, by virtue of his status, a
probationer “ ‘is more likely than the ordinary citizen to vio
late the law,’ ” id., at 120 (quoting Griffin, supra, at 880).
We further found that “probationers have even more of an
incentive to conceal their criminal activities and quickly dis
pose of incriminating evidence than the ordinary criminal be
cause probationers are aware that they may be subject to
supervision and face revocation of probation, and possible
incarceration, in proceedings in which the trial rights of a
jury and proof beyond a reasonable doubt, among other
things, do not apply.” Knights, 534 U. S., at 120. We ex
plained that the State did not have to ignore the reality of
recidivism or suppress its interests in “protecting potential
victims of criminal enterprise” for fear of running afoul of
the Fourth Amendment. Id., at 121.
Balancing these interests, we held that “[w]hen an officer
has reasonable suspicion that a probationer subject to a
search condition is engaged in criminal activity, there is
enough likelihood that criminal conduct is occurring that an
intrusion on the probationer’s significantly diminished pri

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850 SAMSON v. CALIFORNIA
Opinion of the Court
vacy interests is reasonable.” Ibid. Because the search at
issue in Knights was predicated on both the probation search
condition and reasonable suspicion, we did not reach the
question whether the search would have been reasonable
under the Fourth Amendment had it been solely predicated
upon the condition of probation. Id., at 120, n. 6. Our at
tention is directed to that question today, albeit in the con
text of a parolee search.
III
As we noted in Knights, parolees are on the “continuum”
of state-imposed punishments. Id., at 119 (internal quota
tion marks omitted). On this continuum, parolees have
fewer expectations of privacy than probationers, because
parole is more akin to imprisonment than probation is
to imprisonment. As this Court has pointed out, “parole
is an established variation on imprisonment of convicted
criminals. . . . The essence of parole is release from prison,
before the completion of sentence, on the condition that the
prisoner abide by certain rules during the balance of the
sentence.” Morrissey, supra, at 477. “In most cases, the
State is willing to extend parole only because it is able to
condition it upon compliance with certain requirements.”
Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524
U. S. 357, 365 (1998). See also United States v. Reyes, 283
F. 3d 446, 461 (CA2 2002) (“[F]ederal supervised release, . . .
in contrast to probation, is meted out in addition to, not in
lieu of, incarceration” (internal quotation marks omitted));
United States v. Cardona, 903 F. 2d 60, 63 (CA1 1990) (“[O]n
the Court’s continuum of possible punishments, parole is the
stronger medicine; ergo, parolees enjoy even less of the aver
age citizen’s absolute liberty than do probationers” (citations
and internal quotation marks omitted)).2
2 Contrary to the dissent’s contention, nothing in our recognition that
parolees are more akin to prisoners than probationers is inconsistent with
our precedents. Nor, as the dissent suggests, do we equate parolees with
prisoners for the purpose of concluding that parolees, like prisoners, have

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Opinion of the Court
California’s system of parole is consistent with these ob
servations: A California inmate may serve his parole period
either in physical custody, or elect to complete his sentence
out of physical custody and subject to certain conditions.
Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 3060.5 (West 2000). Under the latter
option, an inmate-turned-parolee remains in the legal cus
tody of the California Department of Corrections through
the remainder of his term, § 3056, and must comply with all
of the terms and conditions of parole, including mandatory
drug tests, restrictions on association with felons or gang
members, and mandatory meetings with parole officers, Cal.
Code Regs., tit. 15, § 2512 (2005); Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 3067
(West 2000). See also Morrissey, supra, at 478 (discussing
other permissible terms and conditions of parole). General
conditions of parole also require a parolee to report to his
assigned parole officer immediately upon release, inform the
parole officer within 72 hours of any change in employment
status, request permission to travel a distance of more than
50 miles from the parolee’s home, and refrain from criminal
conduct and possession of firearms, specified weapons, or
knives unrelated to employment. Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15,
no Fourth Amendment rights. See post, at 861 (opinion of Stevens, J.).
That view misperceives our holding. If that were the basis of our hold
ing, then this case would have been resolved solely under Hudson v.
Palmer, 468 U. S. 517 (1984), and there would have been no cause to resort
to Fourth Amendment analysis. See ibid. (holding traditional Fourth
Amendment analysis of the totality of the circumstances inapplicable to
the question whether a prisoner had a reasonable expectation of privacy
in his prison cell). Nor is our rationale inconsistent with Morrissey v.
Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 482 (1972). In that case, the Court recognized that
restrictions on a parolee’s liberty are not unqualified. That statement,
even if accepted as a truism, sheds no light on the extent to which a parol
ee’s constitutional rights are indeed limited—and no one argues that a
parolee’s constitutional rights are not limited. Morrissey itself does not
cast doubt on today’s holding given that the liberty at issue in that case—
the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process right to a hearing before revoca
tion of parole—invokes wholly different analysis than the search at issue
here.

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§ 2512. Parolees may also be subject to special conditions,
including psychiatric treatment programs, mandatory absti
nence from alcohol, residence approval, and “[a]ny other con
dition deemed necessary by the Board [of Parole Hearings]
or the Department [of Corrections and Rehabilitation] due to
unusual circumstances.” § 2513. The extent and reach of
these conditions clearly demonstrate that parolees like peti
tioner have severely diminished expectations of privacy by
virtue of their status alone.
Additionally, as we found “salient” in Knights with respect
to the probation search condition, the parole search condi
tion under California law—requiring inmates who opt for pa
role to submit to suspicionless searches by a parole officer
or other peace officer “at any time,” Cal. Penal Code Ann.
§ 3067(a) (West 2000)—was “clearly expressed” to petitioner.
Knights, 534 U. S., at 119. He signed an order submit
ting to the condition and thus was “unambiguously” aware
of it. Ibid. In Knights, we found that acceptance of a clear
and unambiguous search condition “significantly diminished
Knights’ reasonable expectation of privacy.” Id., at 120.
Examining the totality of the circumstances pertaining to
petitioner’s status as a parolee, “an established variation on
imprisonment,” Morrissey, 408 U. S., at 477, including the
plain terms of the parole search condition, we conclude that
petitioner did not have an expectation of privacy that society
would recognize as legitimate.3
3 Because we find that the search at issue here is reasonable under our
general Fourth Amendment approach, we need not reach the issue
whether “acceptance of the search condition constituted consent in the
Schneckloth [v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218 (1973),] sense of a complete
waiver of his Fourth Amendment rights.” United States v. Knights, 534
U. S. 112, 118 (2001). The California Supreme Court has not yet con
strued Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 3067 (West 2000), the statute which governs
parole for crimes committed after 1996, and which imposes the consent
requirement. The California Court of Appeal has, and it has concluded
that, under § 3067(b), “inmates who are otherwise eligible for parole yet
refuse to agree to the mandatory search condition will remain imprisoned

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The State’s interests, by contrast, are substantial. This
Court has repeatedly acknowledged that a State has an
“ ‘overwhelming interest’ ” in supervising parolees because
“parolees. . . are more likely to commit future criminal of
fenses.” Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole, 524
U. S., at 365 (explaining that the interest in combating reci
divism “is the very premise behind the system of close pa
role supervision”). Similarly, this Court has repeatedly ac
knowledged that a State’s interests in reducing recidivism
and thereby promoting reintegration and positive citizenship
among probationers and parolees warrant privacy intrusions
that would not otherwise be tolerated under the Fourth
Amendment. See Griffin, 483 U. S., at 879; Knights, supra,
at 121.
The empirical evidence presented in this case clearly dem
onstrates the significance of these interests to the State of
California. As of November 30, 2005, California had over
130,000 released parolees. California’s parolee population
has a 68- to 70-percent recidivism rate. See California At
torney General, Crime in California 37 (Apr. 2001) (explain
ing that 68 percent of adult parolees are returned to prison,
55 percent for a parole violation, 13 percent for the commis
sion of a new felony offense); J. Petersilia, Challenges of Pris
oner Reentry and Parole in California, 12 California Policy
Research Center Brief, p. 2 (June 2000), available at http://
. . . until either (1) the inmate agrees to the search condition and is other
wise eligible for parole, or (2) has lost all worktime credits and is eligible
for release after having served the balance of his/her sentence.” People
v. Middleton, 131 Cal. App. 4th 732, 739–740, 31 Cal. Rptr. 3d 813, 818
(2005). Nonetheless, we decline to rest our holding today on the consent
rationale. The California Supreme Court, we note, has not yet had a
chance to address the question squarely, and it is far from clear that the
State properly raised its consent theory in the courts below.
Nor do we address whether California’s parole search condition is justi
fied as a special need under Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868 (1987),
because our holding under general Fourth Amendment principles renders
such an examination unnecessary.

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www.ucop.edu/cprc/parole.pdf (as visited June 15, 2006, and
available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (“70% of the state’s
paroled felons reoffend within 18 months—the highest recidi
vism rate in the nation”). This Court has acknowledged the
grave safety concerns that attend recidivism. See Ewing v.
California, 538 U. S. 11, 26 (2003) (plurality opinion) (“Recid
ivism is a serious public safety concern in California and
throughout the Nation”).
As we made clear in Knights, the Fourth Amendment
does not render the States powerless to address these con
cerns effectively. See 534 U. S., at 121. Contrary to peti
tioner’s contention, California’s ability to conduct suspicion
less searches of parolees serves its interest in reducing
recidivism, in a manner that aids, rather than hinders, the
reintegration of parolees into productive society.
In California, an eligible inmate serving a determinate
sentence may elect parole when the actual days he has
served plus statutory time credits equal the term imposed by
the trial court, Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 2931, 2933, 3000(b)(1)
(West 2000), irrespective of whether the inmate is capable
of integrating himself back into productive society. As the
recidivism rate demonstrates, most parolees are ill prepared
to handle the pressures of reintegration. Thus, most parol
ees require intense supervision. The California Legislature
has concluded that, given the number of inmates the State
paroles and its high recidivism rate, a requirement that
searches be based on individualized suspicion would under
mine the State’s ability to effectively supervise parolees and
protect the public from criminal acts by reoffenders. This
conclusion makes eminent sense. Imposing a reasonable
suspicion requirement, as urged by petitioner, would give
parolees greater opportunity to anticipate searches and con
ceal criminality. See Knights, supra, at 120; Griffin, 483
U. S., at 879. This Court concluded that the incentive-to
conceal concern justified an “intensive” system for supervis
ing probationers in Griffin, id., at 875. That concern applies

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with even greater force to a system of supervising parolees.
See United States v. Reyes, 283 F. 3d, at 461 (observing that
the Griffin rationale “appl[ies] a fortiori” to “federal super
vised release, which, in contrast to probation, is ‘meted out
in addition to, not in lieu of, incarceration’ ”); United States
v. Crawford, 372 F. 3d 1048, 1077 (CA9 2004) (Kleinfeld, J.,
concurring) (explaining that parolees, in contrast to proba
tioners, “have been sentenced to prison for felonies and re
leased before the end of their prison terms” and are “deemed
to have acted more harmfully than anyone except those fel
ons not released on parole”); Hudson, 468 U. S., at 529 (ob
serving that it would be “naive” to institute a system of
“ ‘planned random searches’ ” as that would allow prisoners
to “anticipate” searches, thus defeating the purpose of ran
dom searches).
Petitioner observes that the majority of States and the
Federal Government have been able to further similar inter
ests in reducing recidivism and promoting reintegration, de
spite having systems that permit parolee searches based
upon some level of suspicion. Thus, petitioner contends,
California’s system is constitutionally defective by compari
son. Petitioner’s reliance on the practices of jurisdictions
other than California, however, is misplaced. That some
States and the Federal Government require a level of indi
vidualized suspicion is of little relevance to our determina
tion whether California’s supervisory system is drawn to
meet its needs and is reasonable, taking into account a parol
ee’s substantially diminished expectation of privacy.4
4 The dissent argues that, “once one acknowledges that parolees do have
legitimate expectations of privacy beyond those of prisoners, our Fourth
Amendment jurisprudence does not permit the conclusion, reached by the
Court here for the first time, that a search supported by neither individu
alized suspicion nor ‘special needs’ is nonetheless ‘reasonable.’ ” Post,
at 858. That simply is not the case. The touchstone of the Fourth
Amendment is reasonableness, not individualized suspicion. Thus, while
this Court’s jurisprudence has often recognized that “to accommodate pub
lic and private interests some quantum of individualized suspicion is

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Opinion of the Court
Nor is there merit to the argument that California’s parole
search law permits “a blanket grant of discretion unteth
ered by any procedural safeguards,” post, at 857 (Stevens,
J., dissenting). The concern that California’s suspicionless
search system gives officers unbridled discretion to conduct
searches, thereby inflicting dignitary harms that arouse
strong resentment in parolees and undermine their ability to
reintegrate into productive society, is belied by California’s
prohibition on “arbitrary, capricious or harassing” searches.
See Reyes, 19 Cal. 4th, at 752, 753–754, 968 P. 2d, at 450, 451;
People v. Bravo, 43 Cal. 3d 600, 610, 738 P. 2d 336, 342 (1987)
(probation); see also Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 3067(d) (West
2000) (“It is not the intent of the Legislature to authorize
law enforcement officers to conduct searches for the sole pur
pose of harassment”).5 The dissent’s claim that parolees
under California law are subject to capricious searches con
ducted at the unchecked “whim” of law enforcement officers,
post, at 858–859, 860, ignores this prohibition. Likewise,
petitioner’s concern that California’s suspicionless search law
frustrates reintegration efforts by permitting intrusions into
usually a prerequisite to a constitutional search or seizure,” United States
v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 560 (1976), we have also recognized that
the “Fourth Amendment imposes no irreducible requirement of such suspi
cion,” id., at 561. Therefore, although this Court has only sanctioned sus
picionless searches in limited circumstances, namely, programmatic and
special needs searches, we have never held that these are the only limited
circumstances in which searches absent individualized suspicion could be
“reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment. In light of California’s ear
nest concerns respecting recidivism, public safety, and reintegration of pa
rolees into productive society, and because the object of the Fourth
Amendment is reasonableness, our decision today is far from remarkable.
Nor, given our prior precedents and caveats, is it “unprecedented.”
Post, at 857.
5 Under California precedent, we note, an officer would not act reason
ably in conducting a suspicionless search absent knowledge that the person
stopped for the search is a parolee. See People v. Sanders, 31 Cal. 4th
318, 331–332, 73 P. 3d 496, 505–506 (2003); Brief for United States as Ami
cus Curiae 20.

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the privacy interests of third parties is also unavailing be
cause that concern would arise under a suspicion-based re
gime as well.
IV
Thus, we conclude that the Fourth Amendment does not
prohibit a police officer from conducting a suspicionless
search of a parolee. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of
the California Court of Appeal.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter and Jus
tice Breyer join, dissenting.
Our prior cases have consistently assumed that the Fourth
Amendment provides some degree of protection for proba
tioners and parolees. The protection is not as robust as that
afforded to ordinary citizens; we have held that probationers’
lowered expectation of privacy may justify their warrantless
search upon reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, see United
States v. Knights, 534 U. S. 112 (2001). We have also rec
ognized that the supervisory responsibilities of probation
officers, who are required to provide “ ‘individualized coun
seling’ ” and to monitor their charges’ progress, Griffin v.
Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868, 876–877 (1987), and who are in a
unique position to judge “how close a supervision the proba
tioner requires,” id., at 876, may give rise to special needs
justifying departures from Fourth Amendment strictures.
See ibid. (“Although a probation officer is not an impartial
magistrate, neither is he the police officer who normally con
ducts searches against the ordinary citizen”). But neither
Knights nor Griffin supports a regime of suspicionless
searches, conducted pursuant to a blanket grant of discretion
untethered by any procedural safeguards, by law enforce
ment personnel who have no special interest in the welfare
of the parolee or probationer.
What the Court sanctions today is an unprecedented cur
tailment of liberty. Combining faulty syllogism with circu

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858 SAMSON v. CALIFORNIA
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lar reasoning, the Court concludes that parolees have no
more legitimate an expectation of privacy in their persons
than do prisoners. However superficially appealing that
parity in treatment may seem, it runs roughshod over our
precedent. It also rests on an intuition that fares poorly
under scrutiny. And once one acknowledges that parolees
do have legitimate expectations of privacy beyond those of
prisoners, our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence does not
permit the conclusion, reached by the Court here for the first
time, that a search supported by neither individualized suspi
cion nor “special needs” is nonetheless “reasonable.”
The suspicionless search is the very evil the Fourth
Amendment was intended to stamp out. See Boyd v.
United States, 116 U. S. 616, 625–630 (1886); see also, e. g.,
Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32, 37 (2000). The pre-
Revolutionary “writs of assistance,” which permitted roving
searches for contraband, were reviled precisely because they
“placed ‘the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty
officer.’ ” Boyd, 116 U. S., at 625. While individualized sus
picion “is not an ‘irreducible’ component of reasonableness”
under the Fourth Amendment, Edmond, 531 U. S., at 37
(quoting United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 561
(1976)), the requirement has been dispensed with only when
programmatic searches were required to meet a “ ‘special
need’ . . . divorced from the State’s general interest in law
enforcement,” Ferguson v. Charleston, 532 U. S. 67, 79
(2001); see Edmond, 531 U. S., at 37; see also Griffin, 483
U. S., at 873 (“Although we usually require that a search be
undertaken only pursuant to a warrant (and thus supported
by probable cause, as the Constitution says warrants must
be), . . . we have permitted exceptions when ‘special needs,
beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the war
rant and probable-cause requirement impracticable’ ”).
Not surprisingly, the majority does not seek to justify the
search of petitioner on “special needs” grounds. Although
the Court has in the past relied on special needs to uphold

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warrantless searches of probationers, id., at 873, 880, it has
never gone so far as to hold that a probationer or parolee
may be subjected to full search at the whim of any law en
forcement officer he happens to encounter, whether or not
the officer has reason to suspect him of wrongdoing. Grif
fin, after all, involved a search by a probation officer that
was supported by reasonable suspicion. The special role of
probation officers was critical to the analysis; “we deal with a
situation,” the Court explained, “in which there is an ongoing
supervisory relationship—and one that is not, or at least not
entirely, adversarial—between the object of the search and
the decisionmaker.” Id., at 879. The State’s interest or
“special need,” as articulated in Griffin, was an interest in
supervising the wayward probationer’s reintegration into so
ciety—not, or at least not principally, the general law en
forcement goal of detecting crime, see ante, at 853.1
It is no accident, then, that when we later upheld the
search of a probationer by a law enforcement officer (again,
1 As we observed in Ferguson v. Charleston, 532 U. S. 67 (2001), Griffin’s
special needs rationale was cast into doubt by our later decision in Skinner
v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602 (1989), which reserved
the question whether “ ‘routine use in criminal prosecutions of evidence
obtained pursuant to the administrative scheme would give rise to an in
ference of pretext, or otherwise impugn the administrative nature of
the . . . program,’ ” Ferguson, 532 U. S., at 79, n. 15 (quoting Skinner, 489
U. S., at 621, n. 5). But at least the State in Griffin could in good faith
contend that its warrantless searches were supported by a special need
conceptually distinct from law enforcement goals generally. Indeed, that
a State’s interest in supervising its parolees and probationers to ensure
their smooth reintegration may occasionally diverge from its general law
enforcement aims is illustrated by this very case. Petitioner’s possession
of a small amount of illegal drugs would not have been grounds for revoca
tion of his parole. See Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 3063.1(a) (West Supp. 2006).
Presumably, the California Legislature determined that it is unnecessary
and perhaps even counterproductive, as a means of furthering the goals
of the parole system, to reincarcerate former prisoners for simple posses
sion. The general law enforcement interests the State espouses, by con
trast, call for reincarceration.

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based on reasonable suspicion), we forwent any reliance on
the special needs doctrine. See Knights, 534 U. S. 112.
Even if the supervisory relationship between a probation of
ficer and her charge may properly be characterized as one
giving rise to needs “divorced from the State’s general inter
est in law enforcement,” Ferguson, 532 U. S., at 79; but see
id., at 79, n. 15, the relationship between an ordinary law
enforcement officer and a probationer unknown to him may
not. “None of our special needs precedents has sanctioned
the routine inclusion of law enforcement, both in the design
of the policy and in using arrests, either threatened or real,
to implement the system designed for the special needs ob
jectives.” Id., at 88 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment).
Ignoring just how “closely guarded” is that “category of
constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches,” Chan
dler v. Miller, 520 U. S. 305, 309 (1997), the Court for the first
time upholds an entirely suspicionless search unsupported by
any special need. And it goes further: In special needs cases
we have at least insisted upon programmatic safeguards de
signed to ensure evenhandedness in application; if individual
ized suspicion is to be jettisoned, it must be replaced with
measures to protect against the state actor’s unfettered dis
cretion. See, e. g., Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654–
655 (1979) (where a special need “precludes insistence upon
‘some quantum of individualized suspicion,’ other safeguards
are generally relied upon to assure that the individual’s rea
sonable expectation of privacy is not ‘subject to the dis
cretion of the official in the field’ ” (quoting Camara v. Mu
nicipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387
U. S. 523, 532 (1967); footnote omitted)); United States v.
Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 882 (1975) (“[T]he reasonable
ness requirement of the Fourth Amendment demands some
thing more than the broad and unlimited discretion sought
by the Government”). Here, by contrast, there are no poli
cies in place—no “standards, guidelines, or procedures,”
Prouse, 440 U. S., at 650—to rein in officers and furnish a

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bulwark against the arbitrary exercise of discretion that is
the height of unreasonableness.
The Court is able to make this unprecedented move only
by making another. Coupling the dubious holding of Hud
son v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517 (1984), with the bald statement
that “parolees have fewer expectations of privacy than pro
bationers,” ante, at 850, the Court two-steps its way through
a faulty syllogism and, thus, avoids the application of Fourth
Amendment principles altogether. The logic, apparently, is
this: Prisoners have no legitimate expectation of privacy; pa
rolees are like prisoners; therefore, parolees have no legiti
mate expectation of privacy. The conclusion is remarkable
not least because we have long embraced its opposite.2 It
also rests on false premises. First, it is simply not true that
a parolee’s status, vis-a` -vis either the State or the Constitu
tion, is tantamount to that of a prisoner or even materially
distinct from that of a probationer. See Morrissey v.
Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 482 (1972) (“Though the State properly
subjects [a parolee] to many restrictions not applicable to
other citizens, his condition is very different from that of
confinement in a prison”). A parolee, like a probationer, is
set free in the world subject to restrictions intended to facili
tate supervision and guard against antisocial behavior. As
with probation, “the State is willing to extend parole only
because it is able to condition it upon compliance with certain
requirements.” Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole
v. Scott, 524 U. S. 357, 365 (1998). Certainly, parole differs
from probation insofar as parole is “ ‘meted out in addition
2 See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 482 (1972) (“[T]he liberty of
a parolee, although indeterminate, includes many of the core values of
unqualified liberty”); Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868, 875 (1987) (the
“degree of impingement upon [a probationer’s] privacy . . . is not unlim
ited”); see also Ferguson, 532 U. S., at 101 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“I doubt
whether Griffin’s reasonable expectation of privacy in his home was any
less than petitioners’ reasonable expectation of privacy in their urine
taken”).

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to, not in lieu of, incarceration.’ ” Ante, at 850 (quoting
United States v. Reyes, 283 F. 3d 446, 461 (CA2 2002)). And,
certainly, parolees typically will have committed more seri
ous crimes—ones warranting a prior term of imprison
ment—than probationers. The latter distinction, perhaps,
would support the conclusion that a State has a stronger
interest in supervising parolees than it does in supervis
ing probationers. But see United States v. Williams, 417
F. 3d 373, 376, n. 1 (CA3 2005) (“ ‘[T]here is no constitutional
difference between probation and parole for purposes of
the [F]ourth [A]mendment’ ”). But why either distinction
should result in refusal to acknowledge as legitimate, when
harbored by parolees, the same expectation of privacy that
probationers reasonably may harbor is beyond fathom.
In any event, the notion that a parolee legitimately ex
pects only so much privacy as a prisoner is utterly without
foundation. Hudson v. Palmer does stand for the proposi
tion that “[a] right of privacy in traditional Fourth Amend
ment terms” is denied individuals who are incarcerated.
468 U. S., at 527. But this is because it “is necessary, as a
practical matter, to accommodate a myriad of ‘institutional
needs and objectives’ of prison facilities, . . . chief among
which is internal security.” Id., at 524; see id., at 538
(O’Connor, J., concurring) (“I agree that the government’s
compelling interest in prison safety, together with the neces
sarily ad hoc judgments required of prison officials, make
prison cell searches and seizures appropriate for categorical
treatment” 3); see also Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489
U. S. 656, 680 (1989) (Scalia, J., dissenting). These “insti
tutional needs”—safety of inmates and guards, “internal
order,” and sanitation, Hudson, 468 U. S., at 527–528—mani
3 Particularly in view of Justice O’Connor’s concurrence, which empha
sized the prison’s programmatic interests in conducting suspicionless
searches, see Hudson, 468 U. S., at 538, Hudson is probably best under
stood as a “special needs” case—not as standing for the blanket proposi
tion that prisoners have no Fourth Amendment rights.

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festly do not apply to parolees. As discussed above and in
Griffin, other state interests may warrant certain intrusions
into a parolee’s privacy, but Hudson’s rationale cannot be
mapped blindly onto the situation with which we are pre
sented in this case.
Nor is it enough, in deciding whether someone’s expecta
tion of privacy is “legitimate,” to rely on the existence of the
offending condition or the individual’s notice thereof. Cf.
ante, at 852. The Court’s reasoning in this respect is en
tirely circular. The mere fact that a particular State refuses
to acknowledge a parolee’s privacy interest cannot mean that
a parolee in that State has no expectation of privacy that
society is willing to recognize as legitimate—especially when
the measure that invades privacy is both the subject of the
Fourth Amendment challenge and a clear outlier. With only
one or two arguable exceptions, neither the Federal Govern
ment nor any other State subjects parolees to searches of
the kind to which petitioner was subjected. And the fact of
notice hardly cures the circularity; the loss of a subjective
expectation of privacy would play “no meaningful role” in
analyzing the legitimacy of expectations, for example, “if the
Government were suddenly to announce on nationwide tele
vision that all homes henceforth would be subject to war
rantless entry.” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735, 740–741,
n. 5 (1979).4
4 Likewise, the State’s argument that a California parolee “consents” to
the suspicionless search condition is sophistry. Whether or not a prisoner
can choose to remain in prison rather than be released on parole, cf. ante,
at 852–853, n. 3, he has no “choice” concerning the search condition; he
may either remain in prison, where he will be subjected to suspicionless
searches, or he may exit prison and still be subject to suspicionless
searches. Accordingly, “to speak of consent in this context is to resort to
a ‘manifest fiction,’ for ‘the [parolee] who purportedly waives his rights
by accepting such a condition has little genuine option to refuse.’ ” 5 W.
LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment
§ 10.10(b), pp. 440–441 (4th ed. 2004).

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Threaded through the Court’s reasoning is the suggestion
that deprivation of Fourth Amendment rights is part and
parcel of any convict’s punishment. See ante, at 848–850.5
If a person may be subject to random and suspicionless
searches in prison, the Court seems to assume, then he can
not complain when he is subject to the same invasion outside
of prison, so long as the State still can imprison him. Pun
ishment, though, is not the basis on which Hudson was de
cided. (Indeed, it is settled that a prison inmate “ ‘retains
those [constitutional] rights that are not inconsistent with
his status as a prisoner or with the legitimate penological
objectives of the corrections system.’ ” Turner v. Safley,
482 U. S. 78, 95 (1987).) Nor, to my knowledge, have we
ever sanctioned the use of any search as a punitive measure.
Instead, the question in every case must be whether the bal
ance of legitimate expectations of privacy, on the one hand,
and the State’s interests in conducting the relevant search,
on the other, justifies dispensing with the warrant and
probable-cause requirements that are otherwise dictated by
the Fourth Amendment. That balance is not the same in
prison as it is out. We held in Knights—without recourse
to Hudson—that the balance favored allowing the State to
conduct searches based on reasonable suspicion. Never be
fore have we plunged below that floor absent a demonstra
tion of “special needs.”
Had the State imposed as a condition of parole a require
ment that petitioner submit to random searches by his parole
officer, who is “supposed to have in mind the welfare of the
5 This is a vestige of the long-discredited “act of grace” theory of parole.
Compare Escoe v. Zerbst, 295 U. S. 490, 492–493 (1935) (“Probation or sus
pension of sentence comes as an act of grace to one convicted of a crime,
and may be coupled with such conditions in respect of its duration as
Congress may impose”), with Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778, 782, n. 4
(1973) (“[A] probationer can no longer be denied due process, in reliance on
the dictum in Escoe v. Zerbst, that probation is an ‘act of grace’ ” (citation
omitted)). See also Morrissey, 408 U. S., at 482.

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[parolee]” and guide the parolee’s transition back into soci
ety, Griffin, 483 U. S., at 876–877, the condition might have
been justified either under the special needs doctrine or be
cause at least part of the requisite “reasonable suspicion” is
supplied in this context by the individual-specific knowledge
gained through the supervisory relationship. See id., at 879
(emphasizing probation office’s ability to “assess probabilities
in the light of its knowledge of [the probationer’s] life, charac
ter, and circumstances”). Likewise, this might have been a
different case had a court or parole board imposed the condi
tion at issue based on specific knowledge of the individual’s
criminal history and projected likelihood of reoffending, or
if the State had had in place programmatic safeguards to
ensure evenhandedness. See supra, at 860. Under either
of those scenarios, the State would at least have gone some
way toward averting the greatest mischief wrought by offi
cials’ unfettered discretion. But the search condition here
is imposed on all parolees—whatever the nature of their
crimes, whatever their likelihood of recidivism, and whatever
their supervisory needs—without any programmatic proce
dural protections.6
The Court seems to acknowledge that unreasonable
searches “inflic[t] dignitary harms that arouse strong resent
ment in parolees and undermine their ability to reintegrate
into productive society.” Ante, at 856; see Terry v. Ohio,
392 U. S. 1, 19, 29 (1968). It is satisfied, however, that the
6 The Court devotes a good portion of its analysis to the recidivism rates
among parolees in California. See ante, at 853–854. One might question
whether those statistics, which postdate the California Supreme Court’s
decision to allow the purportedly recidivism-reducing suspicionless
searches at issue here, actually demonstrate that the State’s interest is
being served by the searches. Cf. Reply Brief for Petitioner 10, and n. 10.
Of course, one cannot deny that the interest itself is valid. That said,
though, it has never been held sufficient to justify suspicionless searches.
If high crime rates were grounds enough for disposing of Fourth Amend
ment protections, the Amendment long ago would have become a dead
letter.

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California courts’ prohibition against “ ‘arbitrary, capricious
or harassing’ ” searches suffices to avert those harms—which
are of course counterproductive to the State’s purported aim
of rehabilitating former prisoners and reintegrating them
into society. See ante, at 856 (citing People v. Reyes, 19 Cal.
4th 743, 968 P. 2d 445 (1998)). I am unpersuaded. The re
quirement of individualized suspicion, in all its iterations, is
the shield the Framers selected to guard against the evils of
arbitrary action, caprice, and harassment. To say that those
evils may be averted without that shield is, I fear, to pay
lipservice to the end while withdrawing the means.7
Respectfully, I dissent.
7 As the Court observes, see ante, at 856, n. 5, under California law “an
officer is entitled to conduct suspicionless searches only of persons known
by him to be parolees.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20
(citing People v. Sanders, 31 Cal. 4th 318, 331–332, 73 P. 3d 496, 505 (2003)).
It would necessarily be arbitrary, capricious, and harassing to conduct a
suspicionless search of someone without knowledge of the status that ren
ders that person, in the State’s judgment, susceptible to such an invasion.