COURT RULING EXPANDS POLICE SEARCH POWER

Justices Say Belongings Of passengers in stopped car can be examined

Passengers' personal belongings are fair game when police officers search a
car for criminal evidence against the driver, the Supreme Court ruled
Monday.

The 6-3 decision reinstated a Wyoming drug conviction and expanded the
already considerable police power to stop and search vehicles without a
court warrant. Police officials praised the ruling, but defense lawyers
condemned it.

"Officers must be free of unreasonable, confusing and unworkable
restrictions on what may be searched," said Robert Scully of the National
Association of Police Organizations. He thanked the court for "giving
officers the tools they need to do their jobs."

But Lisa Kemler of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
called the decision "an abomination," adding: "You get in a car and, as a
passenger, you basically have no rights. Almost anything goes, as long as
police can come up with some reason to say they expected to find evidence of
a crime."

Andrew Fine of the Legal Aid Society in New York said the ruling wrongly
"introduces an element of guilt by association."

The Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable
police searches and seizures, generally requires police to obtain court
warrants. Since 1925, the Supreme Court has carved out numerous exceptions
when police targets are in vehicles.

In a key 1996 ruling, the justices said police can stop motorists for
routine traffic violations such as a faulty brake light even if the officers
really want to search for illegal drugs. Monday's ruling means officers who
participate in such stops can search all containers in the car if something
gives them reason to believe they will find drugs.

The court's latest ruling on privacy rights stems from a routine traffic
stop, a situation that arises countless times daily across the nation.

A car driven by David Young was stopped for speeding on Interstate 25 in
Natrona County, Wyo., in the early morning hours of July 23, 1995. After a
Highway Patrol officer saw a hypodermic syringe in Young's pocket, Young
acknowledged that he had used it to take drugs.

During the ensuing search, two other officers asked the car's two female
passengers to get out of the car. One of them, Sandra Houghton, left her
purse on the car's back seat. Inside it, police found drug paraphernalia and
liquid methamphetamine.

She was convicted on a felony charge but appealed.

The Wyoming Supreme Court threw out her conviction last year, ruling that
police were justified only in searching the car for drugs Young may have had
with him and therefore could not search Houghton's purse.

Writing for the nation's highest court, Justice Antonin Scalia said the
Wyoming court was wrong.

"Effective law enforcement would be appreciably impaired without the ability
to search a passenger's personal belongings when there is reason to believe
contraband or evidence of criminal wrongdoing is hidden in the car," Scalia
said.

He added that car passengers "will often be engaged in a common enterprise
with the driver and have the same interest in concealing the fruits or the
evidence of their wrongdoing."

The decision, however, did not give police the authority to pat down or
search the pockets of a passenger when looking for evidence linked to the
driver. Such tactics were banned by a 1948 Supreme Court ruling.

Joining Scalia in reinstating Houghton's conviction were Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy,
Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the court had created "a
new rule" that would let police search even a taxi passenger's briefcase if
they had reason to believe the driver had a syringe somewhere in his
vehicle.

Joining him in dissent were Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg.