COURT WIDENS POLICE SEARCH, INQUIRY POWERS

WASHINGTON - In a decision with broad implications in the war on terrorism,
the Supreme Court ruled Monday that police searching for evidence of a
crime on a bus, train or plane do not have to first inform passengers that
they don't have to cooperate.

By a 6-to-3 vote, the court said police looking for crimes in progress in
such places do not need to tell passengers that they have the right to
refuse to answer questions or agree to requests to search their belongings.

"Officers need not always inform citizens of their right to refuse when
seeking permission to conduct a warrantless consent search," wrote Justice
Anthony Kennedy.

The decision overturns an appeals court ruling and reinstates the drug
trafficking convictions of Christopher Drayton and Clifton Brown Jr. They
argued that they were coerced into allowing police to search their bags and
clothes on a bus because the officers did not tell them they had the right
to refuse.

Lewis Katz, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland, said the court's ruling helps clarify what police may and may
not do in such cases.

Katz noted that since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, police "have
shifted tremendous resources" to buses, trains and planes, "but with that
shift came a lot of confusion about how far they can go in looking for
criminals."

Kennedy rejected the plaintiffs' arguments that a person confined to a
small space such as a bus or plane seat and surrounded by other anxious
passengers might feel coerced by the presence of the police.

"Indeed, because many fellow passengers are present to witness officers'
conduct, a reasonable person may feel even more secure in deciding not to
cooperate on a bus than in other circumstances," Kennedy wrote.

Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices
Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer.

Justice David Souter, who dissented, acknowledged the challenges facing law
officers since Sept. 11 but said the need for tighter security is limited
to air travel, not ground transportation.

"Anyone who travels by air today submits to searches of the person and
luggage as a condition of boarding the aircraft," he said. "(However) the
commonplace precautions of air travel have not, thus far, been justified
for ground transportation ... and no such conditions have been placed on
passengers getting on trains and buses."

Souter was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The case began Feb. 4, 1999, in Tallahassee, Fla., when police looking for
drugs boarded a bus carrying Drayton, 26, and Brown, 29. The two men agreed
to a search of their bags, and no contraband was found. An officer then
asked the men if he could frisk them.

As a result of the pat-down, Drayton and Brown were taken off the bus, and
police found cocaine.

At their trial in the U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, Drayton and Brown
argued that the cocaine was discovered during an illegal search and seizure
and could not be admitted into evidence.