EARTH TO SUPREME COURT: WOMAN'S PURSE MORE THAN A CONTAINER

WASHINGTON -- Somebody should tell the Supreme Court that a woman's purse is
more than just an ordinary "container."

The majority acknowledged that without a warrant a body search of a
passenger that would include a pocket or "the space between his shirt and
underwear" would be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.

But a purse? Fair game. Not technically attached to the body.

It's merely attached to the heart and mind and personality of the woman
carrying it, that's all.

A purse is an extension of a woman's identity. It is her very self, her
lifeline, her support system.

Men carry billfolds to hold money and credit cards, usually in those pockets
the court is protecting. But women carry purses in order to keep with them
at all times their most intimate possessions, such as eyeglasses, keys,
appointment calendars and makeup as well as money and pictures of loved
ones. You name it. Purses hold it.

Purses are not to be taken lightly. They come in all sizes and shapes,
depending on the requirements of their owners. Normally they dangle from a
hand or shoulder, serving as virtually a permanent female appendage.

They are miniature suitcases. Most women would rather lose their soul than
lose their purse.

Oddly, the two female justices split on the issue. Sandra Day O'Connor
thought purses were no big deal while Ruth Bader Ginsburg disapproved of the
majority's strained language protecting a man's pocket but not a woman's
pocketbook.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the majority opinion in Wyoming vs.
Houghton, ruled that a closed container like a purse or briefcase belonging
to a passenger in a car legally stopped because the driver was suspected of
transporting drugs can be included in a general police search of the auto
and its contents. In this case, the passenger, Sandra Houghton, was found to
be carrying drugs and related paraphernalia in her purse.

Scalia sought to make this invasion of privacy palatable by making a
distinction between possessions being worn and those being carried. He
conceded that "even a limited search of outer clothing . . . constitutes a
severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security and it must
surely be an annoying, frightening and perhaps humiliating experience. . . .
But such traumatic consequences are not to be expected when the police
examine an item of personal property found in a car."

Justice Stephen Breyer, in a concurring opinion, was troubled by Scalia's
airy dismissal of a purse as just another receptacle for holding goods.
"Purses are special containers," he noted. "I am tempted to say that a
search of a purse involves an intrusion so similar to a search of one's
person that the same rule should govern both . . . "

But Breyer added that in past decisions the court had refused to legally
treat purses differently from any other closed bag or box and he would stick
to precedent.

He was also influenced by the fact the purse was found at a distance from
its owner, rather than clutched in her hands. "It would matter if a woman's
purse, like a man's billfold, were attached to her person. It might then
amount to a kind of outer clothing," Breyer wrote.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the three-justice dissent, arguing that a
warrantless search of a passenger's purse or briefcase involved a serious
intrusion of privacy that could not be justified without probable cause to
suspect that the person owning it has committed a crime. The mere existence
of a purse in a suspect's car does not mean the cops should be free to
rummage in it just for the fun of it.

The "Supremes" do not realize the mischief they are creating here. No
self-respecting woman is likely to hand over the secrets of her purse to
police snoops without a fight. We have not herd the last of this issue.