PASSENGER PROPERTY FAIR GAME IN AUTO SEARCH

Court rules supreme court clarifies the scope of police checks.

In a decision that continues the trend of giving police greater
authority to search motorists and their cars, the Supreme Court swept
aside the distinction between drivers and their passengers Monday.

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 belongings, the justices ruled on a 6-3 vote.

"We hold that police officers with probable cause to search a car may
inspect passengers' belongings found in the car that are capable of
concealing the object of the search," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for
the court.

Defense lawyers said they were outraged.

"We're becoming a police state. This ruling tells the police that when
they pull over a car to investigate a driver, they can search any one
of us in the vehicle for any reason or no reason whatsoever," said
Denver lawyer Larry S. Pozner, president of the National Association
of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

But Robert Scully, executive director of the National Association of
Police Organizations, praised the court "for giving officers the tools
they need to do their jobs. Officers must be free of unreasonable,
confusing and unworkable restrictions on what may be searched."

Legal experts who have tracked the court's cases on car searches said
the ruling was more of a clarification than a bold departure from
previous rulings.

"All these decisions basically say that once you get in your car, you
are fair game," said Boston University Law Professor Tracey Maclin.
But Monday's ruling "is significant," he added, "because it affects
potentially millions of people."

For decades, the court has said that once people go onto the highways,
they have a diminished right to privacy. Police have nearly unchecked
power to stop and question motorists, the court has said.

But 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.

Until Monday, however, it had been unclear whether this power to
search widely extended to a passenger's belongings.

The issue came before the court when state judges in Wyoming threw out
the drug evidence found in the purse of Sandra Houghton, a passenger
in a car driven by a man who had 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 any wrongdoing.

Monday's ruling reversed that decision.

It would be confusing for the police and for local judges, Scalia
said, if a national rule were set that allowed searches of some
containers in cars, but not others. "One would expect passenger-
confederates to claim everything as their own," he said, prompting a
"bog of litigation" to resolve whether the officers acted correctly.

In previous rulings, the court has said police need a specific reason
to justify searching inside a car. In a December ruling, police were
told that a routine traffic violation is not enough to trigger a
full-blown vehicle search. By contrast, the Wyoming case decided
Monday involved a traffic stop in which the motorist, David Young, had

a hypodermic syringe sticking out of his shirt pocket.

The officer asked why he had the syringe. "With refreshing candor,
Young replied he had used it to take drugs," Scalia wrote.

That prompted the officers to search his car and his two passengers,
including Sandra Houghton. She had a syringe and methamphetamines in
her purse.

She was convicted of a drug felony and served two years in prison
before the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled the search of her purse was
illegal.

In dissent, John Paul Stevens, joined by David Souter and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, faulted the majority for abandoning "settled distinction
between drivers and their passengers."

In other action Monday, the court:

* Ruled 5-4 that judges cannot impose stiffer punishments on criminal
defendants who plead guilty but refuse at sentencing to give details
about the crime. The 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. The
unanimous decision said such a search in a California case, "whether
calculated to annoy or even to prevent consultation with a grand jury
witness," did not violate a lawyer's constitutional rights.

* Refused to review a South Carolina judge's order that barred
pretrial reporting on a secretly recorded conversation between a
murder defendant and his lawyer. The justices turned down a Columbia,
S.C., newspaper's arguments that the judge's 1997 "prior restraint" on
publication was unconstitutional.

* Said it will review the death sentence of Virginia killer Terry
Williams, whose scheduled execution was postponed last week. The
justices said they will decide whether Williams should get a federal
court hearing on his claims that he was denied adequate legal help
during his sentencing trial.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

INFOBOX

THE LOCAL REPORT

In Fresno, police Lt. John Fries declined to comment on the Supreme
Court ruling until it has been reviewed by the department's legal counsel.

Until then, no police changes will be made, he said.

Fresno defense lawyer Rick Berman, area spokesman for the California
Attorneys for Criminal Justice, said the ruling signals a change for
the country -- and not for the better.

"The war on drugs has cost every single American the right to privacy
and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, said Berman, a
past president of the Fresno County Bar Association.

The ruling means, he said, that families on vacation can have
suitcases, purses, and every "nook and cranny" of their vehicle
searched because their teen-age son may be wearing a marijuana
legalization T-shirt.