BACK-DOOR RULING ANOTHER SALVO IN THE DRUG WAR

THIS WAR on drugs can become a war on the civil rights of American
citizens. At least that's the view of the judges who dissented from a
5-to-4 decision out of the Arkansas Supreme Court.

A narrow majority of the court ruled that police were justified in going to
the back yard of a house in Fayetteville after nobody answered a knock on
the front door. An officer said he smelled marijuana around back of the
house and promptly went to get a search warrant.

You may remember this case. It involves Stephen Miller, a former alderman
in Fayetteville. In 1998, he was stopped in Texas and arrested for having
three pounds of marijuana in his car. While he was in jail, police in Texas
alerted officers on a drug-task force in Northwest Arkansas. The cops went
to Stephen Miller's house and poked around till they found a reason to get
a search warrant.

When they did search the Millers' house, the officers found marijuana,
scales, plastic bags, rifles and money. Stephen Miller and his wife
eventually pleaded guilty to charges resulting from the search. He's been
sentenced to four years, his wife to four months. Along the way, Mr. Miller
also resigned from Fayetteville's city council and apologized for his
behavior.

Lots of evidence, a guilty plea, even a resignation. The officers of the
drug task force seem to have made an impressive catch--a city official.

But the methods they used caused four justices on the Supreme Court to
wonder. To quote from the dissenting opinion of Justice Wendell Griffen: "I
reject the notion that the so-called 'war on drugs' entitles the police to
(go) through and across private property at will without probable cause or
a search warrant."

A knock on the front door is reasonable enough. But then, knowing the
Millers were being held in Texas, the police proceeded to the back, even to
a neighbor's yard, looking for evidence. The question then becomes not one
of the Millers' guilt but of how far police can go to gather evidence.

At least in this case, they apparently can go onto private property. Lots
of folks will applaud this decision, and say the Millers only got what was
coming to them. The end justifies the means, doesn't it?

But this kind of policing troubles--even in what has been endlessly called
our War on Drugs. Because police investigations are not wars. To label them
as such opens the door to the steady erosion of Americans' rights. Because
war has a way of stamping out individual rights. War, as a commentator
early in the last century put it, is the health of the state.

There are lots of victims of the drug scourge that afflicts this country.
Among them are those citizens who can be legally pursued--even into their
neighbors' yard--by police officers eager to make a case. The Millers had
marijuana and drug paraphernalia in their house. But the next resident may
be innocent. Think about that when you notice the police wandering around
your back yard.