The Exclusionary Rule and Probation Hearings

North Carolina’s appellate courts have long said that a proceeding to revoke probation is not a criminal prosecution or a formal trial. Instead, probation hearings are generally regarded as informal or summary. State v. Hewett, 270 N.C. 348 (1967). Formal rules of evidence do not apply at violation hearings, meaning hearsay is generally admissible. G.S. 15A-1345(e). But what about illegally obtained evidence?  In State v. Lombardo, 306 N.C. 594 (1982), our supreme court said that the fruits of an unlawful search can be admitted in a probation violation hearing. The particular facts of the Lombardo case may have had something to do with its outcome. Officers at Miami International Airport found marijuana in the defendant’s bag just fifteen days after he was placed on probation in North Carolina for . . . selling marijuana. The drug evidence was excluded at Lombardo’s criminal trial on drug possession charges in Florida (the officers lacked a constitutionally sufficient basis to search him), but our appellate courts said it was admissible at his probation violation hearing in North Carolina. The court reasoned that the primary purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter police misconduct by rendering illegally obtained evidence inadmissible at trial. Unless an officer knows that a person he searches or seizes is on probation, extending the application of the exclusionary rule to probation hearings would add nothing to that deterrent effect. Moreover, the court said, excluding the evidence would “severely damage our probation system” by rewarding defendants like Lombardo “who show a [...]