COURT TO WEIGH ISSUE OF DRUG-SNIFFING DOGS

Checkpoints are merely an illegal dragnet, critics say

WASHINGTON -- A decade after upholding the use of roadblocks to catch
drunken drivers, the Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether adding a
drug-sniffing dog to the checkpoint renders the practice unconstitutional.

The justices accepted an appeal from the city of Indianapolis, where the use
of drug-detection roadblocks was declared unconstitutional last year by a
federal appeals court. Courts around the country have differed on the
legality of this increasingly popular law-enforcement technique.

In this case, Judge Richard Posner, writing for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in Chicago, said that in contrast to the safety rationale that
justified the sobriety checkpoints, the drug-detection roadblocks appeared
to be little more than ``a pretext for a dragnet search for criminals.''

Posner said the Indianapolis program ``belongs to the genre of general
programs of surveillance which invade privacy wholesale in order to discover
evidence of crime,'' amounting to an unreasonable search under the 46ourth
Amendment.

Indianapolis set up the drug roadblocks six times during 1998, stopping
1,161 cars and making 55 arrests for transporting narcotics, as well as 49
arrests for other misconduct. The program was challenged in a class-action
lawsuit brought by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union.

In its Supreme Court appeal, Indianapolis vs. Edmond, No. 99-1030, the city
is arguing that the relatively high number of arrests demonstrates the
program's usefulness as well as the dimension of the drug problem it was
designed to attack.

The city noted that the Supreme Court had ruled in 1983 that a ``canine
sniff'' by a trained drug-detecting dog involves such a minimal intrusion
that it is not a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, which bars
unreasonable search and seizure. Consequently, the city is arguing, adding
this element to a lawful roadblock could not logically result in a Fourth
Amendment violation.

The Supreme Court took these actions Tuesday:

Rejected, by a 5-4 vote, a challenge to Alabama's use of the electric chair
as the only means of execution. Doubt remained whether three states --
Alabama, Georgia and Nebraska -- can continue offering no alternative for
putting inmates to death.

Heard arguments by Whitewater prosecutors who want the justices to preserve
presidential friend Webster Hubbell's guilty plea to a misdemeanor tax
charge. The court's decision is expected by July.

Said it would decide in a Tennessee case whether some high school athletic
associations could be sued for allegedly violating their members' rights. At
issue is whether such associations act on behalf of the state government.

Rejected an appeal by Vittorio ``Vic'' Amuso, who once ran the Lucchese
crime family in New York City. He was convicted in 1992 of 14 murders and
other crimes.

Ruled unanimously in a North Dakota case that people who win a lawsuit, only
to see their victory thrown out on appeal because of improper expert
testimony, are not always entitled to a new trial to prove their case.

Rejected an unusual request in which an Arizona man asked the justices to
immediately order 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez returned to his father in Cuba.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.