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			    GENERAL-RKBA Digest 349
Topics covered in this issue include:
  1) CRIMESTRIKE: USSC To Decide Parolee's Rights by NRA Alerts 
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Topic No. 1
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 17:43:01 -0500 (EST)
From: NRA Alerts 
To: general-rkba-real.nra
Subject: CRIMESTRIKE: USSC To Decide Parolee's Rights
Message-ID: 
                        NRA CrimeStrike's
                        CrimeWatch Weekly
 
            Breaking news on critical crime-fighting 
                 issues, policies and legislation
Vol. 4, No. 13                                     March 31, 1998
                    USSC To Decide If Search
                    Violates Parolee's Rights
     Does a prison inmate who agrees to allow parole officers to
search his residence, as a condition of parole, forfeit his
protection under the Fourth Amendment?
     Pennsylvania Atty. Gen. Mike Fisher argued the affirmative
side of that issue yesterday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a
case involving prison inmate Keith M. Scott, who was serving a
10- to 20-year third-degree murder sentence when he was paroled
in 1993.
     As a condition of parole, Scott signed an agreement
consenting to warrantless  searches by  parole officers.
Subsequently, in February 1994, officers with a tip that Scott
had weapons searched his parents' home, where they found four
shotguns, a rifle, and a bow and arrows. (All felons are
prohibited from owning guns by federal law.)  Scott's  mother and
father said the arms were owned by the father.
     After the parole board revoked Scott's parole and returned
him to prison for 36 months, Scott appealed to the courts.  A
Commonwealth Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that
Scott's rights were violated, and  the state sought relief from
the U.S. Supreme Court.
     The heart of the issue is whether the parole officers had a
reasonable basis for the search.  The fact that the parolee had
given written consent for the searches provided a legal right for
the search, Fisher said.  The American Civil Liberties Union,
however, provided a friend of the court brief holding that a
decision for the state will significantly reduce a parolee's
constitutional rights, reports Associated Press.
          
                 Slain Girl's Family Sues Kansas;
                  Blames Lax Parolee Supervision
     The parents of a Kansas college girl raped and murdered in
1996 by a man on parole from an earlier Missouri murder sentence
have sued the state of Kansas for more than $50,000 in damages.
      Gary Kleypas, the murderer of Pittsburg State University
student Carrie Williams, recently became the first person
sentenced to death under a 1994 law that reinstated the death
penalty in Kansas.   
     The Williams' lawsuit naming the Kansas Department of
Corrections and parole officer Donna Pale claims that they knew
Kleypas had a prior murder conviction and arrests for domestic
battery and drunk driving.  He also had been charged with raping
a girlfriend, a charge dismissed when the woman said she couldn't
remember if the incident was consensual because she was
intoxicated.
     Also, they assert, parole authorities knew that Kleypas, a
nursing student at the university, was put on school probation,
drank, and failed a drug test. They also failed to notify his
landlord that he was on parole for murder. Since he did odd jobs
there, Kleypas had a pass key that he used to enter Ms. Williams'
apartment and steal items, they charge.
     Corrections officials, who declined immediate comment, have
said they reviewed Pale's handling of the case and found she
acted properly.
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