COURT RULES ON SEARCH RAMIFICATIONS

WASHINGTON - Police are conducting a search, and therefore must
comply with constitutional requirements, when they squeeze someone's
luggage to determine if drugs might be inside, the Supreme Court ruled
today.

The 7-2 decision in a Texas case said a U.S. Border Patrol agent who
felt a bus passenger's bag violated the Constitution's Fourth
Amendment ban on unreasonable searches. The bag later was found to
contain drugs.

``Physically invasive inspection is simply more intrusive than purely
visual inspection,'' Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the
court. A bus passenger ``does not expect that other passengers or bus
employees will, as a matter of course, feel the bag in an exploratory
manner.''

``But this is exactly what the agent did here,'' the chief justice
said. ``We therefore hold that the agent's physical manipulation of
(the passenger's) bag violated the Fourth Amendment.''

Today's decision reverses the conspiracy and drug-possession
convictions of Steven Dewayne Bond, who was a passenger on a Greyhound
bus stopped at an immigration checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, Texas. The
bus had traveled from California and was en route to Arkansas.

A Border Patrol agent checked the passengers' immigration status, then
felt their luggage, including bags in overhead bins.

The agent squeezed a canvas bag in the bin over Bond's seat, and the
shape of a ``brick-like'' object inside led him to suspect it
contained drugs. When the agent asked Bond if he could open the bag,
Bond said, ``Go ahead.''

The agent found, wrapped inside a pair of pants, a brick-like object
covered in tape. Tests showed it contained methamphetamine.

Bond asked a trial judge in 1997 to rule the drug could not be used as
evidence, contending the officer's squeezing of the bag amounted to a
search that violated the Fourth Amendment.

The amendment generally prohibits searches unless police have
``probable cause'' to believe they will find evidence of a crime.

The judge ruled against Bond, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals agreed. The appeals court said Bond gave up any reasonable
expectation of privacy when he ``exposed'' the bag to the public by
putting it in the overhead bin.

Today, the Supreme Court said the 5th Circuit court was
wrong.

Rehnquist said today's case was different from two previous cases in
which the nation's highest court held that police observation of
someone's backyard or a greenhouse from a plane or helicopter did not
amount to a search. Those cases involved ``only visual, as opposed to
tactile, observation,'' the chief justice said.

``Travelers are particularly concerned about their carry-on luggage;
they generally use it to transport personal items that ... they prefer
to keep close at hand,'' Rehnquist wrote.

His opinion was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day
O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas and
Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer dissented. Writing for
the two, Breyer said a police officer's squeezing of a bag was no
different from what other passengers might be expected to do.

``At worst, this case will deter law enforcement officers searching
for drugs near borders from using even the most non-intrusive touch to
help investigate publicly exposed bags,'' Breyer said. Travelers who
want to safeguard the contents of their luggage ``from public touch
should plan to pack those contents in a suitcase with hard sides.''

The case is Bond vs. U.S., 98-9349.