Cite as: 524 U. S. 357 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
urging application of the rule. United States v. Payner, 447 U. S. 727, 734 (1980).
The costs of excluding reliable, probative evidence are particularly high in the context of parole revocation proceedings. Parole is a "variation on imprisonment of convicted criminals," Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 477 (1972), in which the State accords a limited degree of freedom in return for the parolee's assurance that he will comply with the often strict terms and conditions of his release. In most cases, the State is willing to extend parole only because it is able to condition it upon compliance with certain requirements. The State thus has an "overwhelming interest" in ensuring that a parolee complies with those requirements and is returned to prison if he fails to do so. Id., at 483. The exclusion of evidence establishing a parole violation, however, hampers the State's ability to ensure compliance with these conditions by permitting the parolee to avoid the consequences of his noncompliance. The costs of allowing a parolee to avoid the consequences of his violation are compounded by the fact that parolees (particularly those who have already committed parole violations) are more likely to commit future criminal offenses than are average citizens. See Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868, 880 (1987). Indeed, this is the very premise behind the system of close parole supervision. Ibid.
The exclusionary rule, moreover, is incompatible with the traditionally flexible, administrative procedures of parole revocation. Because parole revocation deprives the parolee not "of the absolute liberty to which every citizen is entitled, but only of the conditional liberty properly dependent on observance of special parole restrictions," Morrissey v. Brewer, supra, at 480, States have wide latitude under the Constitution to structure parole revocation proceedings.5 Most
5 We thus have held that a parolee is not entitled to "the full panoply" of due process rights to which a criminal defendant is entitled, Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 480 (1972), and that the right to counsel generally
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