DON'T SQUEEZE THE CARRY-ON BAGS, HIGH COURT TELLS LAW OFFICERS

Such A Contraband Search Is Ruled Unconstitutional

WASHINGTON - Law enforcement agents who walk the aisles of a bus squeezing
passengers' carry-on bags for contraband are conducting an unconstitutional
search, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The 7-2 decision, the court's second recent ruling in favor of a defendant
in a contested police search, overturned the narcotics conviction of a man
who carried a 1-pound brick of methamphetamine in a duffel bag he stowed in
the bin above his seat on a Greyhound bus.

A federal border patrol agent, conducting a routine immigration check as
the bus traveled through Texas, felt the solid object as he conducted a
"probing tactile examination" of passengers' carry-on luggage, as Chief
Justice William H. Rehnquist described the sequence of events in his
majority opinion.

Two lower federal courts rejected the argument by the defendant, Steven D.
Bond, that the agent's action violated the Fourth Amendment right to be
free of unreasonable searches. The agent's probe was not a search in the
constitutional sense, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last
year, because no bus passenger could have a "reasonable expectation that
his bag would not be handled or manipulated by others."

Writing for the court yesterday, Rehnquist disagreed. "Travelers are
particularly concerned about their carry-on luggage," he said, adding that
"they generally use it to transport personal items that, for whatever
reason, they prefer to keep close at hand." The chief justice said that
though "a bus passenger clearly expects that his bag may be handled," he
does not expect that other passengers or bus employees "will, as a matter
of course, feel the bag in an exploratory manner," as occurred in this case.

The majority rejected the Justice Department's argument in the case, Bond
vs. U.S., No. 98-9349, that the search was little different from visual
searches of open fields from low-flying aircraft, which the court has said
do not violate the Fourth Amendment. "Physically invasive inspection is
simply more intrusive than purely visual inspection," Rehnquist said.

As the justices' debate indicated, determining whether an expectation of
privacy is reasonable under particular circumstances is the key to deciding
whether an invasion of that privacy by a government agent violates the
Fourth Amendment. As the court's precedents have developed it, the inquiry
has two parts: first, did the individual expect privacy, and second, was
that expectation of privacy one that society recognizes as reasonable?

Meanwhile, in other actions, the court:

Ruled that railroads are not financially liable for allegedly inadequate
warning devices at public grade-level rail crossings if the equipment
installed was federally financed. The 7-2 decision in a Tennessee case
could affect disputes from most of the 170,000 such crossings nationwide.

Agreed to decide whether state employees are protected by a key anti-bias
law, the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court's eventual decision in
two Alabama cases could sweep broadly enough to affect all ADA lawsuits
against state governments, not just those filed by public employees.

Rejected a free-speech challenge to restrictions on outdoor cigarette
advertising in New York City and Chicago.

Let a Southern California school district ban the Ten Commandments from a
fence at a high school baseball field.

The court, without comment, left intact the school district's rejection of
an advertisement that included the commandments.

A Downey businessman who wanted to post an ad that included the
commandments said the school district's refusal unlawfully discriminated
against religious speech and violated religious freedom. But a federal
appeals court ruled he was wrong.

Said it will use a Missouri case to decide whether states can require
congressional candidates to support term limits for members of Congress or
be labeled an opponent on the election ballot.