POLICE SEARCH POWERS ARGUED AT HIGH COURT

In a spirited session of oral arguments rendered more relevant by the day's
news, the Supreme Court heard two cases yesterday testing police power to
search people and their belongings. The disputes evoked fears about abusive
police tactics and public concerns over firearms violence.

As the justices were raising the circumstances of last year's Columbine
High School shootings, a Michigan first-grader was being shot to death,
allegedly by a classmate. But the cases also emerge against a backdrop of
worries that crime prevention has become an excuse to trample individual
rights, and the justices expressed some skepticism about both types of
police searches at issue.

The first question was whether a traveler who puts his luggage in an
overhead compartment expects it to stay private. A federal agent who had
checked passengers' immigration status aboard a Greyhound bus in Texas
began squeezing canvas suitcases placed in a rack. In one of them, he felt
a brick-like object that turned out to be a pack of methamphetamine. The
bag's owner, Steven Dewayne Bond, was convicted on drug charges.

The Justice Department argued that once a person stores his bags in a rack
used by other passengers, he knows they will be jostled and squeezed by
fellow travelers and, possibly, the police. A federal appeals court agreed,
saying that whenever someone knowingly exposes his belongings to the
public, they're not covered by the Fourth Amendment ban against
"unreasonable searches."

But yesterday many of the justices 96 who showed by their questions that
they know what it's like to displace luggage and stuff their own into
compartments 96 suggested that there's a difference between expecting
fellow travelers to move around bags and expecting police to probe them for
contraband.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the federal agent's action was "deliberate
manipulation ... not pushing and shoving." Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
noted that an officer would be squeezing a bag to reveal what's inside,
compared with another traveler's jostling intended to make room in a rack.

When another passenger squeezes a canvas bag, Justice David H. Souter
added, "it is not touched for the purpose of being explored."

But Justice Antonin Scalia asserted that travelers don't count on privacy
after they throw their bags in a common overhead rack. He referred to
"nasty passengers" who paw away at the bags of others.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy observed that while fellow travelers and the
police may be feeling luggage for different reasons, "I think this is one
of the differences to which the law is blind."

That is the heart of the government's position in Bond v. United States.
Assistant Solicitor General Jeffrey A. Lamken urged the court to rule that
once a person puts his bags in a common area, he loses the expectation of
privacy that is part of a Fourth Amendment analysis. He said the intentions
of the person who touches the luggage do not matter. As long as the bags
have been "knowingly exposed," officers can feel them without the usual
search requirement that they have specific reasons to believe a crime has
occurred.

M. Carolyn Fuentes, representing Bond, countered that people expect their
nearby luggage to stay private and are not prepared for police to
surreptitiously touch it. In one of the most forceful arguments by an
advocate at the court in recent months, Fuentes said that if the justices
affirm the lower court it would lead to widespread police handling of
travelers' personal belongings in a search for drugs.

In the second case, an anonymous tipster in Miami told police that three
young black men were at a bus stop and that one, wearing a plaid shirt, was
toting a gun. Officers saw nothing suspicious but patted down the youth in
plaid and found a gun. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the search,
based on an anonymous and unverified tip, was unconstitutional.

In the state's appeal, Assistant Attorney General Michael J. Neimand argued
that a tip involving a firearm raises the stakes for officers' safety and
should be considered in giving officers leeway to stop and frisk someone.
Neimand said that if police can verify the innocent details of such a tip -
such as a person's clothing - that would raise the requisite "reasonable
suspicion" that a crime is underway.

Some of the justices noted that tips can be the product of pranks and
vendettas and observed that in a 1990 ruling they said police need to
corroborate an anonymous tip before stopping someone. Still, Justices
O'Connor and Stephen G. Breyer also highlighted firearms violence, bomb
threats and school tragedies that have caused authorities to encourage
people to report potential trouble.

Representing the arrested youth in the case of Florida v. J.L., Harvey J.
Sepler emphasized: "We need to hold tipsters accountable. We need to hold
police accountable."