Cite as: 532 U. S. 67 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
police does not merely provide a basis for distinguishing prior "special needs" cases. It also provides an affirmative reason for enforcing the Fourth Amendment's strictures. While state hospital employees, like other citizens, may have a duty to provide the police with evidence of criminal conduct that they inadvertently acquire in the course of routine treatment, when they undertake to obtain such evidence from their patients for the specific purpose of incriminating those patients, they have a special obligation to make sure that the patients are fully informed about their constitutional rights, as standards of knowing waiver require. Cf. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436. Pp. 77-86.
186 F. 3d 469, reversed and remanded.
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 86. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Thomas, J., joined as to Part II, post, p. 91.
Priscilla J. Smith argued the cause for petitioners. With her on the briefs were Simon Heller, Lynn Paltrow, Susan Frietsche, David S. Cohen, Susan Dunn, David Rudovsky, and Seth Kreimer.
Robert H. Hood argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Barbara Wynne Showers and Mary Agnes Hood Craig.*
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we must decide whether a state hospital's performance of a diagnostic test to obtain evidence of a patient's criminal conduct for law enforcement purposes is an
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Julie E. Sternberg, Steven R. Shapiro, Sara L. Mandelbaum, Catherine Weiss, Louise Melling, Louis M. Bograd, Martha F. Davis, Yolanda S. Wu, and Roslyn Powell; for the American Medical Association by Michael Ile, Anne Murphy, and Leonard Nelson; for the American Public Health Association et al. by Daniel N. Abrahamson and David T. Goldberg; for the NARAL Foundation et al. by Nancy L. Perkins and Jodi Michael; for the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform et al. by Carolyn A. Kubitschek; and for the Rutherford Institute by John W. Whitehead and Steven H. Aden.
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