TROOPER'S LOOK UNDER TRUCK WENT TOO FAR

A Tennessee Highway Patrol officer violated the Fourth Amendment guarantee
against unreasonable search and seizure by looking under a pickup truck
after getting permission to search in the vehicle, the state Supreme Court
ruled yesterday.

In a case arising from a traffic stop in Dickson County, the court voted
4-1 to suppress evidence reportedly found in the gas tank of a truck driven
by David Walter Troxell. Troxell was pulled over by Trooper Mark Norrod
Nov. 11, 1999, on Interstate 40 west of Nashville.

Norrod reported finding 300 grams of cocaine in the tank after looking at
the undercarriage and noticing that bolts and hoses to the tank appeared to
have been recently removed.

A court suppressed the evidence as a violation of the Fourth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution, then was reversed on appeal. The state Supreme Court
reinstated the original ruling.

''We simply disagree that the word 'in' may be so broadly stretched,
particularly given that the burden of establishing that a warrantless
search was lawful rests with the state, not the defendant,'' wrote Justice
E. Riley Anderson in the majority opinion.

''The verbal exchange ... expressly indicated that the officer intended to
search only for 'weapons' that were 'in the vehicle,' and there was nothing
to indicate that the search would encompass more than just the vehicle's
interior,'' Anderson wrote.

Justice Frank F. Drowota III dissented.

''This entire appeal ... turns upon the meaning of the word 'in,' ''
Drowota wrote in his dissenting opinion.

''Did the officer's use of this word limit the search to the passenger
compartment of the vehicle? In my view, the manifest answer to this
question is no.''