COURTS LOOKS AT CHICAGO 'PAT-DOWN' CASE

WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) - In what could be another benchmark - or low water
mark - for personal freedom, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear argument
next term on whether police may conduct a "pat-down" search of someone who
flees from them for no apparent reason in a high-crime area.

The case accepted by the justices today involves an arrest in Chicago in 1995.

City Police Officer Timothy Nolan, a 9-year-veteran dressed in uniform, was
part of special team converging that September on what appeared to be "high
narcotics traffic area" on West Van Buren Street.

Nolan was in the last of a ``caravan'' of four cars cruising down the street.

Nolan said he could not remember whether his car was marked or unmarked.

The officer and his partner said Sam Wardlow was standing near the front of
the high-traffic area, but took off running as he looked at the officers.
Nolan said Wardlow was carrying a white bag under his arm.

The officers used their car to corner Wardlow in an alley, where Nolan
stepped out of the vehicle to talk to Wardlow. But first, he conducted a
"protective pat-down" personal search of Wardlow.

Veteran officers are allowed to perform such searches for their own safety
under the Supreme Court's 1968 decision, Terry vs. Ohio. The searches can be
conducted without direct evidence of a crime, but can
only be performed when the veteran officer has "reasonable suspicion" that
the target of the search has committed or is about to commit a crime.

Out in the alley in 1995, Nolan's "pat-down" found a hard and heavy shape
inside the white bag that turned out to be a Colt .38-caliber pistol loaded
with five rounds of ammunition.

In a bench trial, a state judge found Wardlow guilty of unlawful use of a
weapon by a felon, rejecting Wardlow's motion to suppress the evidence.

Eventually, however, the Illinois Supreme Court suppressed the evidence and
reversed the conviction, citing the Fourth Amendment's ban against
"unreasonable searches and seizures."

Argument in the case should be heard next winter.

Two members of the Supreme Court, important swing vote Justice Anthony
Kennedy in a concurring opinion in 1988, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia,
have already suggested that limited searches may be constitutional when
someone flees police in a high-crime area for no apparent reason. (No.
98-1036, Illinois vs. Wardlow)