JUSTICES BACK THE POLICE - AND INDIANS SEARCHES

Cops can inspect everything when stopping drivers on suspicion

WASHINGTON - A police officer who stops a car and has reason to
suspect it contains illegal drugs or guns may search everything in the
vehicle, including a passenger's purse, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The 6-3 decision continues the trend of giving police greater
authority to search motorists and their cars.

For decades, the court has said that once people leave home and go
onto the highways, they have a diminished right to privacy.

To maintain safety on the roads, police have nearly unchecked power to
stop and question motorists, the court has said.

But the scope of police power to search inside a stopped car has been
fought out in a series of cases over the past 20 years.

The officer needs something beyond a mere traffic violation to justify
a full-fledged search of the car, the court has said.

If, for example, the motorist appears to be drunk or on drugs, or is
believed to be carrying a concealed weapon, the officer can search
"every part of the vehicle and its contents," the court has said in
the past.

Until Monday, however, it had been unclear whether this power to
search extended to the personal belongings of a presumably innocent
passenger.

The issue came before the court when state judges in Wyoming threw out
the drug evidence found in the purse of a passenger in a car driven by
a man who had a syringe sticking out of his front pocket.

This search violated the Fourth Amendment, the Wyoming Supreme Court
said, because police had no reason to suspect the passenger of wrongdoing.

Reversing that decision, the Supreme Court swept aside the distinction
between motorists and their passengers.