COURT GIVES WIDE POWER TO POLICE IN CAR SEARCHES

Checking property of passengers allowed

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court widened yesterday the power of police
to search the belongings of passengers in cars stopped for traffic
violations.

If officers have reason to believe that the driver may have drugs or
other illegal items in the car, that allows them to search purses or
other personal property of all passengers -- even if no passenger is
suspected of a crime, the court decided by a 6-3 vote.

Any container in the car that might contain illegal items may be
searched, the court said,

That authority, however, does not extend to searching the clothing or
the passengers themselves, the court stressed. It said the
Constitution draws a distinction between searching persons and
property, but not between driver and passengers.

The dissenters complained that the decision expands police search
power over passengers, based solely on the driver's actual or
suspected misconduct. But the dissenters said that, "thankfully," the
ruling only involves searches when an automobile is involved, and not
other private property.

The ruling was the latest in a long series of Supreme Court cases
testing police authority to search or conduct questioning during legal
traffic stops. In most of those cases, the court has tended to favor
added police power.

This time, the court overturned a Wyoming Supreme Court decision
saying that it is unconstitutional for police to search belongings of
passengers in stopped cars, when officers have no suspicions about
passengers themselves.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the opinion, said, "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."

The case involved the police search of a female passenger's purse
after the driver -- stopped for speeding and for a burned-out brake
light -- was found to have a drug syringe in his pocket. The driver
admitted he had used it for drugs. The passenger's purse was in the
back seat.

After officers found illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia in her
purse, Sandra Houghton was convicted for illegal possession of drugs
and sentenced to two to three years in prison.

The National Association of Police Organizations praised the ruling,
saying "officers must be free of unreasonable, confusing and
unworkable restrictions on what may be searched."

But the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called the
decision "an abomination," saying it meant that passengers "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."

Joining Justice Scalia in the decision were Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist and Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra
Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas. Dissenting were Justices John Paul
Stevens, joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter.

In a second criminal law decision, the justices ruled, 5-4, that an

individual who pleads guilty to a crime still may rely upon the Fifth
Amendment to refuse to answer questions at the sentencing hearing to
avoid giving facts that could make the sentence more severe.

The judge and jury may not draw any negative conclusions because the
Fifth Amendment right to silence is invoked, the court ruled in an
opinion by Justice Kennedy in a drug trafficking case from Allentown,
Pa.

A woman who pleaded guilty to cocaine dealing refused at the
sentencing hearing to say how much cocaine had been involved -- a
factor in determining the sentence. The judge said he was holding her
silence against her, and gave her a 10-year prison sentence.