COURT SIDES WITH POLICE ON DETENTION

A drug suspect was kept out of his home while officers got a warrant. They
thought he would destroy evidence.

WASHINGTON - Police who are convinced that a drug suspect will destroy
evidence if left alone may hold the suspect outside the home while they get
a warrant, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

In a second case exploring the balance between law enforcement and privacy
rights, the court also heard the arguments of a man arrested after police
outside his house used a heat-measuring device to detect a
marijuana-growing operation inside.

In the first case, Charles McArthur and a Sullivan, Ill., officer had a
polite standoff outside his trailer four years ago, after police confronted
him with allegations from his estranged wife that he had marijuana hidden
under his couch.

For about two hours, McArthur refused to let the officer inside without a
warrant, and the officer refused to let McArthur go inside alone.

The justices voted 8-1 that the officer acted appropriately.

Police "had probable cause to believe that a home contained contraband,
which was evidence of a crime," and every reason to think that McArthur
would destroy the stash if he got the chance, Justice Stephen G. Breyer
wrote for the majority.

Indeed, McArthur has admitted that is exactly what he would have done.

Police "imposed a restraint that was both limited and tailored reasonably
to secure law enforcement needs while protecting privacy interests," Breyer
wrote.

As in several other drug-search cases the court has heard or decided
recently, the issue pits law enforcement needs against the right to
privacy. The court explored the same equation in arguments involving the
heat detector.

In November, the court ruled that police may not erect random roadblocks to
look for drug dealers because such checkpoints subject many innocent
motorists to scrutiny. Last April, the court said authorities may not
randomly squeeze luggage on buses while hunting for drugs.

Danny Lee Kyllo says police violated the Fourth Amendment's protections
against unreasonable searches when they used the heat detector to scan his
house from a distance.

Police did not have a search warrant, and the government argues none was
needed. The heat sensor was not "like an X-ray machine" that would allow
authorities to see inside a house, Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben
argued to the justices yesterday.

Kyllo's attorney, Kenneth Lerner, argued in the case, Kyllo v. U.S., that
the heat scan was invasive enough to violate his client's privacy.

"We may expect people to walk around with binoculars, but we don't expect
them to walk around with thermal imagers," Lerner said.

Justice Antonin Scalia questioned that view.

"You know there are such things as thermal imagers," he asked. "Why do we
have to assume we live in a world without technology?"

Justice Breyer seemed skeptical. He said that bird-watchers carried
binoculars and Boy Scouts had flashlights, but "who has a heat thermal
device? Nobody, except a few."

Drug detectives used the information from the heat scan, along with a tip
from an informant and electricity records, to get a warrant for Kyllo's
Florence, Ore., home.

When agents searched the house in January 1992, they found drug
paraphernalia and more than 100 marijuana plants. Kyllo was arrested.

A decision in his case is expected before the close of the court's term in
June.

In the Illinois case decided yesterday, the high court overturned a state
appeals court's ruling that the seizure violated McArthur's Fourth
Amendment rights.

Justice John Paul Stevens was the lone dissent in Illinois v. McArthur. He
said the tiny amount of drugs found in McArthur's home made the case a poor
instrument for such an important constitutional test.

The case now returns to Illinois courts.

The court also rejected an appeal by a retired aircraft worker whose U.S.
citizenship was revoked because he served as a Nazi concentration-camp
guard during World War II. Michael Negele argued that a federal court
improperly revoked his citizenship.

The court also agreed to clarify the government's procedures for firing or
disciplining some employees who have been disciplined previously. The U.S.
Postal Service argues that it can base its firing of a letter carrier on
the fact that she was disciplined before, even though the worker's
challenge of the prior discipline was pending.

The court also refused to reopen debate over the Endangered Species Act's
impact on private landowners. The justices turned aside a North Carolina
case testing whether farmers may kill endangered red wolves that stray from
a federal refuge.