Cite as: 534 U. S. 112 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
Knights argues that this limitation follows from our decision in Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868 (1987). Brief for Respondent 14. In Griffin, we upheld a search of a probationer conducted pursuant to a Wisconsin regulation permitting "any probation officer to search a probationer's home without a warrant as long as his supervisor approves and as long as there are 'reasonable grounds' to believe the presence of contraband," 483 U. S., at 870-871. The Wisconsin regulation that authorized the search was not an express condition of Griffin's probation; in fact, the regulation was not even promulgated at the time of Griffin's sentence.2 The regulation applied to all Wisconsin probationers, with no need for a judge to make an individualized determination that the probationer's conviction justified the need for warrantless searches. We held that a State's operation of its probation system presented a "special need" for the "exercise of supervision to assure that [probation] restrictions are in fact observed." Id., at 875. That special need for supervision justified the Wisconsin regulation and the search pursuant to the regulation was thus reasonable. Id., at 875-880.
In Knights' view, apparently shared by the Court of Appeals, a warrantless search of a probationer satisfies the Fourth Amendment only if it is just like the search at issue in Griffin—i. e., a "special needs" search conducted by a probation officer monitoring whether the probationer is complying with probation restrictions. This dubious logic—that an opinion upholding the constitutionality of a particular search implicitly holds unconstitutional any search that is not like it—runs contrary to Griffin's express statement that its "special needs" holding made it "unnecessary to consider whether" warrantless searches of probationers were other-2 Griffin was placed on probation in September 1980, 483 U. S., at 870, and the regulation was not promulgated until December 1981, id., at 871.
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