COURT BROADENS POLICE SEARCH POWERS

Ruling: Car Passengers' Personal Items Can Be Examined In Some Instances,
Justices Say.

Washington-Police officers who have probable cause to search a car for
illegal drugs can search the personal belongings of passengers who are under
no suspicion of illegal activity, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, clarifying
a 1982 decision that expanded police authority over motorists and their
passengers.

The 6-3 decision overturned a ruling by the Supreme Court of Wyoming, which
held last year that a purse belonging to a passenger could not be included
in a search of a car and its contents unless there was reason to suspect the
passenger of a crime or the driver of concealing evidence in the passenger's
belongings.

The purse belonged to a passenger in a car that police in Wyoming had
stopped for speeding. The driver said that he used a hypodermic syringe,
visible in his shirt pocket, to administer drugs. That gave police probable
cause to search the car, but the Wyoming court said it was unreasonable for
them to search a purse they knew belonged to the passenger and not to the
driver. The purse contained methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Wyoming court had
incorrectly drawn a distinction, on the basis of ownership, between
containers that could be the subject of a warrantless automobile search and
those that could not. "Passengers, no less than drivers, possess a reduced
expectation of privacy with regard to the property that they transport in
cars," he said.

Salvia said that in balancing the "substantial" law enforcement interests in
a complete search against a passenger's reduced expectation of privacy, the
law enforcement side was clearly the weightier.