HIGH COURT BACKS SEARCHES OF CAR PASSENGER BELONGINGS

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

The 6-3 decision reinstated a Wyoming drug conviction and expanded the
already considerable powers of police 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.

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. Yesterday'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 car driven by David Young was stopped for speeding in
Natrona County, Wyo., on 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 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.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision, while overturning the Wyoming high
court's decision, 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.

The Supreme Court also took the following actions yesterday:

Ruled that judges cannot impose stiffer punishments on criminal
defendants who plead guilty but refuse at sentencing to give details
about the crime. The 5-4 ruling in a Pennsylvania drug case said
holding such defendants' silence against them would impose "an
impermissible burden on the exercise of the constitutional right
against compelled self-incrimination."

Ruled that prosecutors don't violate lawyers' rights to practice their
profession by having them searched and interfering with their ability
to advise a client appearing before a grand jury.

Said it will review the death sentence of convicted Virginia killer
Terry Williams, whose scheduled execution today was postponed last
week.

Clarified the deadline for transferring cases from state court to
federal court, saying the 30-day clock begins to run when someone is
formally served and receives a copy of a lawsuit.