HIGH COURT EXPANDS CAR SEARCH AUTHORITY PASSENGER PROPERTY MAY BE EXAMINED

The Supreme Court significantly curtailed the privacy rights of automobile
passengers yesterday by ruling 6 to 3 that a police officer may search a
passenger's belongings simply because he suspects the driver has done
something wrong.

The decision gives police officers broader powers to scour a car for drugs
and other contraband and for the first time makes passengers who are not
suspected of wrongdoing subject to warrantless searches.

For decades the court has allowed officers to extensively inspect a
driver's car and its compartments in myriad situations without a warrant,
provided the police have probable cause to believe the driver had committed
some crime. But until yesterday, the justices had never permitted the
search of personal items of a passenger who was suspected of no wrongdoing.

The court normally requires that, to comply with the Fourth Amendment
protection against unreasonable searches, police must first obtain a
warrant before going through people's possessions. Police can act without a
warrant if officers have grounds to believe an individual is breaking the
law. Now, passengers can expect to have to submit to a search of their
belongings by virtue of their mere presence in the car and not because of
anything they do.

"Passengers, no less than drivers, possess a reduced expectation of privacy
with regard to the property that they transport in cars, which travel
public thoroughfares," Justice Antonin Scalia declared in the majority
decision upholding a Wyoming state trooper's search of a female passenger's
purse after a male driver was stopped and suspected of concealing drugs.

In their dissent, Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth
Bader Ginsburg said that by abandoning "the settled distinction between
drivers and passengers," the decision seriously intrudes on privacy rights.

Against the backdrop of the nation's crusade on drugs and debate over how
far police go, advocates on both sides were quick to lash out or
alternatively laud the decision.

"I don't think the court's opinion corresponds to how people live their
lives," said Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil
Liberties Union. "It shouldn't be true that whenever you get into a car as
a passenger, you forfeit all your privacy rights" because of suspicion
raised by the driver.

Donna Domonkos, appellate counsel in Wyoming's public defender office who
represented the woman who was caught with drug paraphernalia and
methamphetamine in her purse, complained that the ruling "presumes guilt by
association."

But Robert T. Scully, executive director of the National Association of
Police Organizations, praised the decision "for giving officers the tools
they need to do their job."

Deputy Wyoming Attorney General Paul S. Rehurek added that it was
unreasonable to think police could separate out items in a vehicle by
ownership and whether individual passengers were suspected of wrongdoing.

The case began in July 1995 when a Wyoming trooper stopped a car driven by
David Young because of a faulty brake light. The officer noticed a
hypodermic syringe in Young's shirt pocket, and as Scalia's opinion noted,
Young admitted "with refreshing candor . . . that he used it to take drugs."

With that admission, the officer began searching the car for contraband. On
the back seat, he found passenger Sandra Houghton's purse. The officer, who
said he lacked sufficient grounds to suspect Houghton, nonetheless searched
her purse. Houghton was convicted of methamphetamine possession. She then
appealed saying that the search violated her Fourth Amendment rights.

Reversing the conviction, the Wyoming Supreme Court observed that
"generally, once probable cause is established to search a vehicle, an
officer is entitled to search all containers. . . . However, if the officer
knows or should know that a container is the personal effect of a passenger
who is not suspected of criminal activity, then the container is outside
the scope of the search."

But Scalia wrote that the court's past cases giving police broad power to
search cars leads to a rule that would allow all containers in a car to be
inspected, without regard to whose they are. Scalia stressed the stakes of
law enforcement and said a rule protecting passengers' belongings could
lead criminals to hide contraband in those items. He was joined by Chief
Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M.
Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer.

In the dissent, Stevens wrote that "the court's newly minted test" would
allow serious intrusions on privacy. Under the rule of Wyoming v. Houghton,
he said, police apparently could search a taxi passenger's briefcase if the
officer had reason to believe the driver had hidden a syringe somewhere.

Separately, the court ruled 5 to 4 that defendants who plead guilty do not
lose their right to remain silent at a sentencing hearing and that judges
should not hold their silence against them. A Pennsylvania woman pleaded
guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine but then refused to testify
about the details of the crime or quantities involved, which affected the
severity of her sentence. A district judge said he drew a negative
inference from her silence as he sentenced her to 10 years.

But the high court reversed that ruling based on the Fifth Amendment
privilege against self-incrimination. "Treating a guilty plea as a waiver
of the privilege at sentencing would be a grave encroachment on the rights
of defendants," Kennedy wrote for the court. Dissenting in Mitchell v.
United States were Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia and Thomas.