LAWYERS QUESTION SEARCH BY RACINE COUNTY DEPUTIES

Driver says he was stopped over tailpipe violation, then frisked in 'weird'
incident

The traffic stop and search of a Racine County motorist has raised new
questions about a campaign by five county sheriff's departments to enforce
laws along I-94, two lawyers say.

In response, a Racine County sheriff's lieutenant defended the effort,
saying patrols are concentrating on the I-94 corridor in response to
increasing complaints about traffic violations, drugs and other problems.

The motorist, Steven Miller, said he was driving home from work along an
I-94 frontage road a couple of weeks ago when a Racine County sheriff's car
carrying three deputies pulled him over.

The deputies told him the exhaust pipe on his 1984 Impala was illegal.

Then, Miller said, the deputies asked whether he had anything illegal -
"guns, bombs, drugs" - in his car. He said he didn't, but he consented to a
search.

One deputy pulled on a pair of leather gloves, Miller recalled, and they
searched the car's interior as well as the trunk.

Then a deputy asked whether they could frisk him, and Miller agreed.

"I didn't have anything to hide, so I let him," said Miller, 22, a
Franksville car painter.

The deputies found nothing and quickly went on their way, without issuing a
warning or citation or even mentioning the exhaust pipe again, a puzzled
Miller said.

"How often do you see three county sheriffs in one car?" he asked. "It was
just weird from the start."

James MacDonald, a criminal defense lawyer and member of the Police and Fire
Commission in Union Grove, said the sheriff's departments clearly are using
traffic stops as a way to search for drugs.

The new campaign, which ignited controversy earlier this month after a "drug
check point" sign was put up on I-94 in Milwaukee County, could backfire and
make citizens resentful of law enforcement, he predicted.

"A defective exhaust pipe should not give rise to a search," MacDonald said.

"Those kinds of stops are wrong, and they do not do the police any good. The
police have a lot of authority, and they are intimidating just by their
jobs. They should not go out of their way to be intimidating, and if a large
segment of society becomes suspicious of its police, that is not good at
all," he said.

Oak Creek police and the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department came under
similar criticism from motorists in 1991 for a drug checkpoint along I-94
near Rawson Ave. in southern Milwaukee County.

During that six-hour operation, more than 50 cars were stopped, and about 10
people were arrested on misdemeanor drug charges.

News of stepped-up law enforcement along I-94 surfaced this year when
deputies were spotted June 3 pulling over cars in southern Milwaukee County
near a sign saying "drug check point ahead."

Officers on the scene said the effort was aimed at making drug arrests, but
the sheriffs leading the campaign - from Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha,
Kenosha and Ozaukee counties - have since said it targets "aggressive
drivers" who then are asked to give permission for their cars to be
searched.

Racine County sheriff's Lt. Tom Sweet said Friday that he was not aware of
the Miller stop but pointed out that it is legal for officers to search a
car with the driver's permission.

In Racine County, Sweet said, patrols have been stepped up along I-94
because of drug trafficking between Milwaukee and Chicago, as well as
citizen complaints about speeding and other traffic problems. A search such
as that of Miller and his car "doesn't sound like anything out of the
ordinary," he said.

Many citizens have expressed thanks for the added enforcement on I-94, Sweet
said.

"Sometimes you have to create a perception that if you violate the law in a
particular area - in this case I-94 - if you're going to be a blatant
speeder, your chances of being caught are higher than before," he said.

Miller said he was upset to learn from MacDonald that he did not have to
allow the search. He said he was embarrassed because it was conducted in the
parking lot of a restaurant where he used to work.

"Don't make me look like a fool in a place that I used to work, because I
didn't do anything wrong," Miller said.

In the I-94 crackdown, deputies "are just pulling people over for traffic
violations, hoping they can search cars," Racine criminal defense lawyer
Patrick Cafferty said.

But the tactic isn't new and isn't limited to the interstate, he said.

In the past two weeks, Cafferty said, three men complained to him about
having their cars and themselves searched after being pulled over by police
in central Racine for allegedly playing their car stereos too loud.

No contraband was found in any of the searches, said Cafferty, who added
that each of the men "would not be unfamiliar to the police."

Cafferty said that a criminal history is not sufficient cause to conduct a
search and that each of the men told him they had not given permission for
the searches. The men believed that being pulled over for noise was "just a
guise to search people," Cafferty said.

Racine police Sgt. Jerry Baldukas said Police Chief Richard Polzin made
enforcing "quality of life" violations a priority this year. Loud car
stereos are among the most common complaints of residents, Baldukas said.

Baldukas was not aware of the three searches described by Cafferty but said
conducting searches based on evidence of possible illegal activity "is good
law enforcement practice."