COURT ALLOWS FOR SEARCH OF ALL IN VEHICLE

WASHINGTON -- 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."

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.

A car driven by David Young was stopped for speeding on Interstate 25 in
Natrona County, Wyo., early 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 car's back seat. Inside it, police found drug paraphernalia and
liquid methamphetamine.

She was convicted on a felony charge, but she 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 country'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.

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.