GOOD POLICE WORK ADDS UP - AND COURT SAW IT

Decision On Border Incident Aids Law Enforcement

If the power of the police is not restrained, a free society will not
remain free for long. But restrictions on the police cannot be
unreasonable or the free society will be at the mercy of lawbreakers.

These are not abstract philosophical concepts. They are about the
delicate balancing act that protects both your liberty and your
security.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision about an incident in Arizona's
back yard keeps things in balance.

The case involved a drug runner on Arizona's southern border. A
Border Patrol agent noticed a number of suspicious things about the
minivan being driven by Douglas resident Ralph Arvizu in 1998. The
agent stopped the vehicle and found 123 pounds of marijuana.

A court convicted the drug runner. His lawyer appealed to have the
evidence suppressed and the conviction overturned. The 9th Circuit
Court obliged. It said the Border Patrol agent lacked reasonable
suspicion to make the stop because many of the individual factors the
agent found suspicious were unremarkable when considered separately.

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision last week reversed the appeals
court and put things right.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said that, even though some of the
individual factors the Border Patrol agent noted might not be
suspicious in and of themselves, they added up to good reason for a
police stop.

Police officers - and Border Patrol agents are de facto national cops
- - are trained to recognize suspicious patterns of behavior. In this
case, the agent's observations were right on. The result was bringing
a drug runner to justice.

Some civil libertarians worry that this case gives the Border Patrol
permission to harass Latinos anywhere along the border. That is not
the case. It was behavior, not ethnic background, that made the agent
suspicious.

This decision tells police to use their best judgment as trained law
enforcement officers when making stops. That's what we hire them to
do.

The vigilance of civil libertarians tells police that abusing that
power will not be tolerated. That's what a free society depends on
civil libertarians to do.

This decision preserves the delicate balance.