COURT SAYS POLICE CAN BAR SUSPECTS FROM HOME

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

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 police officer in Downstate
Sullivan 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
McArthur would destroy the stash if he got the chance, Justice
Stephen J. 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.

Danny Lee Kyllo claims police in Florence, Ore., 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 Tuesday.

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

In the Illinois standoff case decided Tuesday, 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. He said the tiny
amount of drugs found in McArthur's home makes the case a poor
instrument for such an important constitutional test.

Lower courts, Stevens wrote, "placed a higher value on the sanctity
of the ordinary citizen's home than on the prosecution of this petty
offense."

Stevens argued the court should not have tried to decide the case at
all, but if pressed he would have upheld the Illinois courts.

"They correctly viewed that interest--whether the home be a humble
cottage, a secondhand trailer or a stately mansion--as one meriting
the most serious constitutional protection," Stevens wrote.

The case now returns to Illinois courts.