COURT TO HEAR INDIANAPOLIS CASE ON DRUG ROADBLOCKS

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to decide whether police are violating
motorists' constitutional rights when they set up roadblocks to conduct
random drug inspections.

The case, to be heard at the court next fall, could widely affect police
operations nationwide as law enforcement authorities implement an array of
checkpoint programs to stem the flow of narcotics trafficking. Lower courts
remain split over whether the random stops infringe on Fourth Amendment
protections against unreasonable searches.

The dispute involves a case out of Indianapolis, where police officers
checked drivers for signs of impairment, such as slurred speech, and led
drug-sniffing dogs around vehicles. A federal appeals court ruled the
practice wrongly detains motorists who have done nothing to raise police
suspicions.

In its decision, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said the city had failed
to establish any "urgent considerations of public safety" to justify
randomly stopping drivers. The appeals court panel acknowledged in its
decision last year that the Supreme Court had previously upheld roadblocks
at which police check drivers for the influence of alcohol. But the opinion
by Chief Judge Richard A. Posner, one of the nation's most prominent
jurists, said sobriety tests are different from drug stops because sobriety
tests are primarily concerned with road safety for all travelers and not
concerned "primarily with catching crooks."

Posner emphasized that the city was using the checkpoints as a law
enforcement tool, even though there was no reason to believe that the
various drivers stopped had done anything wrong. As such, he said, the
practice violates drivers' privacy in an effort to find some evidence of a
crime.

In appealing the decision to the high court, the city of Indianapolis noted
that a Florida narcotics roadblock had been upheld by the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 11th Circuit and urged the justices to clarify what police
can do.

The practice was challenged in a class action lawsuit brought by the
Indiana Civil Liberties Union. The challengers, who included two people who
were stopped but not arrested, alleged that the policy was unconstitutional
because it allowed officers to stop people without the usually required
"individualized suspicion" of drug dealing or other wrongdoing. They said
the narcotics and K-9 stops crossed the line in being designed solely to
interdict drugs. The case is City of Indianapolis v. Edmond.

In returning yesterday from a month-long recess, the justices also issued
orders in hundreds of pending cases and ruled in disputes heard earlier
this term. Among other actions yesterday, the court:

* Rejected an appeal by George Mason University in a sex discrimination
lawsuit brought by a woman who said she had been harassed by a university
professor. By declining to take the case, the court let stand a ruling by
the Richmond-based 4th Circuit that said the state-run university was not
shielded from claims filed under a statute that prohibits sex bias at
colleges receiving federal funds. George Mason lawyers, appealing to the
justices' interest in bolstering states' rights, had argued that even
though the school had accepted the federal education funds, it had retained
a state's usual 11th Amendment immunity from lawsuits based on the statute.
The justices spurned the appeal without comment or recorded vote in George
Mason University v. Litman.

* Agreed to decide whether a high school athletic association can be sued
as a "state actor" for allegedly violating the rights of its member
schools. The case was brought by Brentwood Academy, a private high school
in Tennessee, against the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association
after the group banned the school from football tournaments for alleged
recruiting violations. The case of Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary
School Athletic Association will be heard next fall.

* Ruled in a federal income tax case that the three-year time limit for
seeking a refund of overpayments begins running when a person's withholding
and estimated tax payments are submitted. By a unanimous vote, the justices
upheld lower courts and rejected arguments by a former Washington Post
employee that the deadline is tied to when someone files a tax return.
(Baral v. United States)