SUSPECTS CAN BE BARRED FROM OWN HOME WHILE COPS GET WARRANT

High Court Says Suspects Can Be Barred From Home

WASHINGTON (Reuters) Giving the police new powers to search and seize
evidence, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that officers can stop
suspects from entering their own homes while the officers get a search warrant.

The conservative-controlled high court ruled that the brief seizure of the
premises was permissible under the U.S. Constitution, given the nature of
the intrusion and the law enforcement interests at stake.

The 8-1 decision added to a number of rulings in recent years that have
sided with the police and have narrowed the privacy protections under the
constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures of
evidence.

The ruling was a victory for Illinois prosecutors, who argued that the
police needed to keep a drug suspect from destroying marijuana inside his
trailer home.

The case began on April 2, 1997, when Tera McArthur asked two police
officers in Sullivan, Illinois, to accompany her to the trailer where she
lived with her husband, Charles McArthur, so they could keep the peace
while she removed her belongings.

When she came outside after getting her possessions, she told one officer
her husband had marijuana under the couch.

An officer knocked on the door, and McArthur came outside. The officer
asked permission to search the trailer, but McArthur refused. The other
officer went to get a search warrant.

The remaining officer told McArthur he could not reenter the trailer unless
he accompanied him. McArthur went inside several times to get cigarettes
and to make telephone calls, and the officer stood just inside the door to
observe what he did.

TWO HOURS TO GET SEARCH WARRANT

It took about two hours to get a warrant. The officers then conducted a
search and found marijuana and drug paraphernalia. McArthur was charged
with possessing less than 2.5 grams of marijuana and possessing drug
paraphernalia, both misdemeanors.

Writing for the court majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said the police had
probable cause to believe that McArthur's home contained evidence of a
crime and unlawful drugs.

He said the police had good reason to fear that McArthur would destroy the
drugs before they could return with a warrant.

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

Only Justice John Paul Stevens dissented. He said the case involved a
balancing of privacy interests against law enforcement concerns.

Stevens said he would uphold the decision of the Illinois jurists "who
placed a higher value on the sanctity of the ordinary citizen's home than
on the prosecution of this petty offense."