COURT'S DECISION BOLSTERS POWERS OF POLICE IN CONDUCTING SEARCHES

WASHINGTON Strengthening police powers to conduct searches, the Supreme
Court ruled that officers may, under certain circumstances, restrain
suspects from entering their own homes until a search warrant is obtained.

Writing for the majority in the 8-1 decision, Justice Stephen Breyer said
the court weighed an Illinois man's right to privacy against
law-enforcement needs and, in this instance, found that the police didn't
violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against "unreasonable searches
and seizures."

The court also heard oral arguments yesterday in a similar case pitting
privacy rights against cutting-edge search technology. In this instance,
police used a heat-sensing device to, in effect, peek into the home of an
Oregon man who was growing marijuana using electric lighting that generated
lots of heat. The man's attorney argued that the heat-sensing technology
violated the sanctity of his client's home. But Justice Antonin Scalia said
people should be aware that such devices exist. "Why do we have to assume
that we live in a world without technology?"

The case that produced yesterday's decision began on April 2, 1997, in
Sullivan, Ill., when Tera McArthur asked two police officers to accompany
her home to her trailer to "keep the peace while she removed her
belongings." When Ms. McArthur left the dwelling, she told the officers
that her husband, Charles, had marijuana and drug paraphernalia hidden
under a couch inside.

Mr. McArthur refused to let the officers enter the trailer to conduct a
search. He was then barred from re-entering the dwelling by one officer,
while the other officer sought a search warrant. The officers subsequently
found the drugs and paraphernalia and arrested Mr. McArthur. A trial court
granted Mr. McArthur's motion to have the evidence suppressed, and the
Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed that ruling.

In yesterday's decision, which reversed those rulings, Justice Breyer
wrote, "We have found no case in which this court has held unlawful a
temporary seizure that was supported by probable cause and was designed to
prevent the loss of evidence" while the police sought a warrant.

Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, saying that the possession of a small
amount of marijuana for personal use was "a poor vehicle for probing the
boundaries" of a person's privacy rights in his home while a search warrant
is being obtained. (Illinois v. McArthur)

In other actions:

- - The high court agreed to review whether seeds and the plants that spring
from them can be patented.

In 1985, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office began issuing utility patents
on seeds, encouraging companies such as DuPont Co. and Monsanto Co., a unit
of Pharmacia Corp., to spend billions of dollars to transplant foreign
genes into crops, since those modifications could be protected from imitators.

The legality of the thousands of seed patents issued in recent years is
coming to a head now because DuPont's agricultural unit, Pioneer Hi-Bred
International Inc., of Des Moines, Iowa, sued a Belmond, Iowa, farm-supply
dealership in 1998 for selling some of its patented corn seed without
permission. Yesterday, the justices agreed to review a lower-court ruling
that sided with DuPont. (J.E.M. AG Supply v. Pioneer Hi-Bred)

- - The court ruled unanimously that agricultural cooperative banks created
by the Farm Credit Act of 1933 are required to pay state income taxes. The
decision overruled Missouri's Supreme Court, which had said that the
federally chartered, privately owned banks were exempt from state
income-tax laws. The U.S. Supreme Court said that such banks may have
implied immunity if the law is silent, but in this case Congress
specifically stated that such banks are subject to state taxes. (Missouri
v. CoBank)

- - The justices refused an appeal by Time Warner Entertainment Co., which
challenged the constitutionality of a provision of the 1992 Cable
Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that limits the number
of subscribers a cable-television company may reach through cable systems
that it owns. The company now is part of AOL Time Warner Inc. (Time Warner
v. FCC)

- - The high court also rejected an appeal from CSU LLC, an Overland Park,
Kan., company that began servicing Xerox photocopiers and printers in 1984.
The company claimed that Xerox Corp. refused to sell replacement parts and
diagnostic software in an effort to monopolize the copier-service market.
(CSU v. Xerox)