SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE IF POLICE CAN BLOCK SUSPECT
FROM GOING HOME TO DESTROY EVIDENCE

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court today agreed to clarify whether
police can keep people from going inside their homes alone while
officers seek a search warrant.

The court said it will hear Illinois prosecutors' argument that they
should be allowed to use as evidence the marijuana seized from a man's
home. Illinois courts said police violated the constitutional ban on
unreasonable searches and seizures by temporarily keeping him outside.

In a 1997 episode, two Sullivan, Ill., police officers accompanied
Tera McArthur to retrieve her belongings from the trailer home she
shared with her husband, Charles McArthur. When she came outside, she
told police he had marijuana under the couch.

An officer knocked on the door, and McArthur came outside, denied he
had drugs and told police they could not search without a warrant.
During the two hours it took to get a warrant, police did not let
McArthur re-enter his home unless an officer accompanied him and stood
inside the door.

Police 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.

McArthur conceded that if he had been allowed to go inside his home
alone he would have destroyed the marijuana. But he asked a state
trial judge to bar use of the marijuana as evidence, contending the
officer violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The trial judge ruled
for him, and an Illinois appeals court agreed.

The officers essentially evicted McArthur from his home, the appeals
court said, adding that no special circumstances justified the
officer's entering the trailer with McArthur.

The appeals court noted that other courts have let police keep someone
outside when the person was under arrest, subject to arrest on
arrival, or when the person consented to stay outside.

In the appeal acted on today, prosecutors said the government had an
interest in keeping McArthur from destroying evidence, and that the
appeals court ruling would make it virtually impossible for police to
secure homes in such cases.

The case is Illinois vs. McArthur, 99-1132.