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No reasonable expectation of privacy in urine samples of professional athletes

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

In a spinoff from the BALCO case, United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, 473 F.3d 915, 936 (9th Cir. 2006), the N.D. Cal. holds that a professional athlete had no reasonable expectation of privacy in urine samples tested by the government's U.S. Anti-Doping Agency ("USADA") after she was suspended for doping. The USADA retested the urine, and it led to a perjury indictment. United States v. Thomas, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29406 (N.D. Cal. March 3, 2008): As a threshold matter, defendant lacks so-called Fourth Amendment standing to contest the search of the urine samples. When defendant voluntarily submitted these samples to the USADA, the USADA's protocols for drug testing, effective during the years 2001 and 2002, clearly stated that "[a]ll samples collected by USADA shall be the property of USADA...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on April 12, 2008 (boomark / email).