Instructor's Analysis to Scenario of Probation Officer
Your Role and Some Thought-provoking Questions:
A law clerk, the legal secretary, the paralegal, the prosecutor, and the trial supervisor will investigate this question. You are the probation officer in the scenario and might ask yourself the following questions:
- Where did you hear about this new custom?
The fact that you heard about this at a professional conference is important. Law enforcement and Corrections (which includes probation) require 40 hours of training a year. The conference may have been the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, your regional Criminal Justice Association (Southern, Northeastern, etc.), American Correctional Association, or The American Probation and Parole Association. Noted below are the legitimate sites for your reading.
- Why did you use it?
This training provided you and through you—your jurisdiction with an important new protocol. As it is allowed in other jurisdictions you claim that you used that other jurisdictional case as a "guiding case." You will remind those researching the issue that probationers do not retain their civil rights while felons. As this arrestee is a felon search and seizure does not require a search warrant.
- What type of results has this new practice produced for you?
You removed a serious criminal (a felon) from the community and confiscated the contraband. These actions increase the safety of the community and that is what you are charged by the courts to do.
- Who (probation office, jurisdiction, state) else uses it with success?
At the conference you heard that New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, California, Florida, and New Jersey use this routinely. These states are known for good law and can be used as a guide in a new protocol.
By the end of the course you will be able to provide more sophisticated answers but for right now this is sufficient.
Resources: