Cite as: 532 U. S. 67 (2001)
Scalia, J., dissenting
sequences (e. g., dismissal from employment or disqualification from playing on a high school sports team) will follow from refusal. The person searched has given consent, as defined to take into account that the consent was not voluntary in the full sense of the word. See Skinner, 489 U. S., at 615; Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 660-661; Acton, 515 U. S., at 650-651. The consent, and the circumstances in which it was given, bear upon the reasonableness of the whole special needs program.
Here, on the other hand, the question of consent, even with the special connotation used in the special needs cases, has yet to be decided. Indeed, the Court finds it necessary to take the unreal step of assuming there was no voluntary consent at all. Thus, we have erected a strange world for deciding the case.
My discussion has endeavored to address the permissibility of a law enforcement purpose in this artificial context. The role played by consent might have affected our assessment of the issues. My concurrence in the judgment, furthermore, should not be interpreted as having considered or resolved the important questions raised by Justice Scalia with reference to whether limits might be imposed on the use of the evidence if in fact it were obtained with the patient's consent and in the context of the special needs program. Had we the prerogative to discuss the role played by consent, the case might have been quite a different one. All are in agreement, of course, that the Court of Appeals will address these issues in further proceedings on remand.
With these remarks, I concur in the judgment.
Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Thomas join as to Part II, dissenting.
There is always an unappealing aspect to the use of doctors and nurses, ministers of mercy, to obtain incriminating evidence against the supposed objects of their ministration— although here, it is correctly pointed out, the doctors and
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