SEARCH RULE SAID TO HURT MINORITIES

The supreme court decision to give more power to police during traffic
storps could lead to abuses, two local attorneys say.

Local civil rights attorneys believe individuals - especially ethnic
minorities - will suffer unfairly from a U.S. Supreme Court decision
giving police more authority in searches during traffic stops.

The high court yesterday broadened police officers' authority to
search car passengers when the driver is suspected of wrongdoing.

"I'm very wary of giving anybody that much power," said Raul A.
Miranda, a Tucson attorney specializing in civil rights issues.

"I don't think police need that expanded power," local attorney Paul
Gattone said. "They have enough power now."

Gattone, a civil rights activist with the Southern Arizona People's
Law Center and executive vice president with the National Lawyers
Guild, fears more minorities will be harassed and targeted as a result
of the ruling.

The 6-3 decision reinstated a Wyoming drug conviction and essentially
expanded police power to stop and conduct vehicle searches without a
court warrant.

"Police officers are more prone to stop persons of color while driving
on the streets. We have what's called 'driving while black' or
'driving while brown,' "Gattone said.

But law officials here and around the nation are praising the
decision.

"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.

Capt. Richard Kastigar, commander of the Pima County sheriff's patrol
division, said, "I applaud the Supreme Court of the United States for
affording police officers tools to pursue charges against criminals."

Tucson City Prosecutor R. William Call agreed.

"From a prosecutorial standpoint, it's a very good case," he said. "It
does give police an additional tool ."

Call disagreed that the ruling would unfairly target
minorities.

"It shouldn't affect minorities more than whites," Call said, noting
that officers seeing evidence of a crime will conduct searches
regardless of race or ethnicity.

But Lisa Kemler of the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers called the decision "an abomination" against individuals' rights.

"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," she said.

And Miranda says minorities are certain to be affected.

"It does seem minorities are targeted more by police. I don't think
that's right, but it is a fact of life," he said.

Miranda said he has often heard the police lingo of "pulled over for
driving while Hispanic" as justification for stopping a vehicle.

Gattone said he was disappointed by the decision, but not
shocked.

"I think, on the one hand, it's the continuation of a frightening
trend of the Supreme Court, and the federal judiciary in general, with
the whittling away of Fourth Amendment rights. On the other hand, it
is not surprising . . . given this Supreme Court's determination to
erode rights under the Fourth Amendment," he said.

The Constitution's Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable
police searches and seizures. It generally requires police to obtain
court warrants authorizing them to conduct searches.

But since 1925, the Supreme Court has carved out numerous exceptions
allowing officers to conduct such searches 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 situation that arises countless times daily across the
nation.

A car driven by David Young was stopped for speeding on Interstate 25
in Natrona County, Wyo., in the early hours of 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 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 Supreme 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.

"The sensible rule . . . is that such a package may be searched,
whether or not its owner is present as a passenger or otherwise,
because it may contain the contraband that the officer has reason to
believe is in the car," Scalia said.

He added that car passengers "will often be engaged in a common
enterprise with the driver and have the same interest in concealing
the fruits or the evidence of their wrongdoing."

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.

But, 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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.