REGIONAL CASES TURN ON POLICE POWERS

Ruling Could Affect Roadway Checkpoints

WASHINGTON - Illinois and Missouri cases will play pivotal roles in the new
term of the Supreme Court, as the court seeks to more precisely define
police powers to search and interrogate suspects.

The court will hold its first oral arguments of the 2003-04 term today.

Next month, it will take up the case that challenged the constitutionality
of an Illinois police checkpoint that netted a drunken driver even though
the checkpoint was set up for another purpose.

And in December, the justices will review the murder case against Patrice
Seibert, a Rolla, Mo., woman who made incriminating statements before and
after police intentionally delayed reading her the Miranda warning that
begins, "You have the right to remain silent." The Illinois attorney
general's office is defending the constitutionality of informational
checkpoints, like the one set up by Lombard, Ill., police in 1997 to seek
leads on a hit-and-run driver who had killed a bicyclist in the same area a
week before. While doing so, the officers arrested Robert Lidster on an
unrelated drunken-driving charge.

The Illinois Supreme Court threw out Lidster's conviction after ruling the
checkpoint violated the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable
searches and seizures.

Illinois Solicitor General Gary Feinerman argues otherwise: "It's important
because informational checkpoints are a useful tool that police officers
use to solve crimes, in particular vehicular crimes. When you have a
hit-and-run accident, as in this case, the best witnesses may be motorists
who are driving on the same street at the same time. The only feasible way
to reach those motorists is to have a checkpoint."

The Missouri case is one of three the court will hear that revolve around
the Miranda warnings. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon calls those "the
troika of cases . . . (that will decide) the breadth of what could be
excluded in Miranda."

His office will defend a Missouri police officer's actions in questioning
Seibert, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Donald
Rector, 17, who died in an arson fire in her mobile home.

When Seibert was arrested, a Rolla police officer told the arresting
officer not to read Seibert her Miranda rights. The Rolla officer
interviewed her, then read her the rights before taking a taped confession.

Last year, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed her conviction because of
the delay and ordered a new trial. That trial is on hold pending the
Supreme Court decision.

The other Miranda cases before the Supreme Court will flesh out other
aspects of the requirement, which was set down in a 1966 Supreme Court
ruling, that law enforcement officers advise suspects of their rights to a
lawyer during interrogation.

One case will look at the admissibility of physical evidence found as a
result of a suspect's statements made before receiving a Miranda warning.
Samuel Patane was charged with illegal possession of a firearm after he
told Colorado Springs, Colo., officers where they could find the gun in his
bedroom. They seized it as evidence before reading him his Miranda rights.

Another case, similar to Seibert's, will touch on the admissibility of a
confession when the suspect confessed to a crime both before and after
Miranda warnings were given. That was the case of John J. Fellers, who was
convicted on drug charges after his arrest by Lincoln, Neb., officers, who
first questioned him at home before reading the Miranda warning at a
jailhouse later.

"I think the Seibert case presents the most stark consequences for Miranda,
because the question presented in our case is whether willful Miranda
violations are going to be tolerated," said Amy Bartholow of the Missouri
state public defender's office.

Fiber-Optics Case

The Supreme Court also has agreed this term to review a Missouri case that
will help determine whether cities can compete with private companies in
the telecommunications market. At issue is a Missouri law that bans cities
from using their fiber-optic networks to provide phone and Internet
services to private customers.

The Missouri Municipal League contends a phrase in the 1996 federal
Telecommunications Act trumps that law with a provision permitting the
Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt laws that ban "any entity"
from offering telecommunications services.

In Missouri, the cities of Columbia, Sikeston and Springfield would like to
expand their city-owned fiber-optic networks to private customers, but they
have heavy-hitter opposition from the state, the FCC and Southwestern Bell.

Missouri's attorney general argues that the state has the ability to
legislate such powers for cities.