By Joseph Neff, Benjamin Niolet
News & Observer
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republicans introduced a strategy Tuesday to fix the probation system: allow any police officer to search any probationer at almost any time, without a warrant.
The plan would increase supervision of criminals and offer sorely needed assistance to probation officers struggling with heavy caseloads, proponents said.
Rep. Paul Stam, the House minority leader, said law enforcement and probation officials need to work together more closely, just as the CIA and FBI have had to cooperate more since Sept. 11, 2001.
“This is a force multiplier,” said Stam, a Wake County Republican.
The proposal came in reaction to News & Observer articles detailing how probation officers can’t locate 14,000 offenders, how 580 probationers were convicted of killing while on probation since 2000 and how top probation officials ended promising computer programs to help officers track their clients.
The Republicans called on the Department of Correction to make public on its Web site the names and photos of the thousands of absconding probationers. Correction spokesman Keith Acree said most of that information is now available, though not all in one place. The department will likely make all absconder information easily searchable on its Web site soon, Acree said.
Some legislators and law professors questioned whether the bill affecting searches might violate the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
In general, a law enforcement officer needs a judge or magistrate to sign a warrant before conducting a search.
North Carolina law, however, allows probation officers to conduct warrantless searches of a probationer, his car and his home if a judge has made that a condition of the offender’s sentence. That is common; 61 percent of the state’s 117,779 probationers and parolees are currently subject to warrantless searches. The law says the search must be related to supervision of the offender.
The legislative proposal, however, would open the doors for police to conduct searches that have no connection to probation, said Duke law professor James Coleman.
“This establishes a subset of citizens without Fourth Amendment rights,” Coleman said. “Any officer anywhere can search this person’s house.”
Republicans said the idea for their proposal came from an N&O article about probation surveillance officer Mark Hornsby, who has made scores of seizures of guns and drugs from probationers in Harnett County. Hornsby had conducted a warrantless search in 2008 in Harnett County of a convicted drug dealer who was on probation in a neighboring county. Hornsby’s supervisor disciplined him for the search, which she called unlawful.
Rep. W. David Guice, a retired probation supervisor from Brevard and a Republican, said all probationers and parolees should be subject to warrantless searches by any law enforcement officer.
“If we allow the courts to pick and choose which offender to search, we’re making a grave mistake,” Guice said.
The bill raises the question of the purpose of probation, said UNC law professor Richard Myers. If the proposal is truly aimed at helping probation officers supervise their offenders, police should be required to contact the probation officer before conducting the search, Myers said.
“If not, then this is just an investigative tool for law enforcement,” Myers said.
Copyright 2009 News & Observer