HIGH COURT EXPANDS POLICE POWER IN TRAFFIC SEARCHES

If Drugs Or Weapons Are Suspected, Officers May Inspect Belongings Of
Everyone In Car.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a police officer who
stops a car and has reason to suspect that it contains illegal drugs or guns
may search everything in the vehicle, including a passenger's belongings.
The 63 vote narrowed the distinction between drivers and their passengers,
continuing the trend toward giving police greater authority to search
motorists and their cars.

"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.

Monday's decision concerned only purses, bags and other belongings, the
court stressed. Officers cannot search the passengers themselves and check
their pockets, the justices said, reaffirming a 1948 ruling.

Nevertheless, defense lawyers said they were outraged. Denver attorney Larry
S. Pozner, president of the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers,
said: "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 [the
belongings of] any one of us in the vehicle for any reason or no reason
whatsoever." But Robert Scully, executive director of the National Assn. 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 that the ruling was more of a
clarification than a bold departure. The scope of police power to search
inside a stopped car has been fought out in a series of cases over the last
20 years.

"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 persons leave home
and go onto the highways, they have a diminished right to privacy.

To maintain safety on the roads, police have nearly unchecked power to stop
and question motorists, the court has said.

The officer needs something beyond a mere traffic violation to justify a
fullfledged 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 in the past.

Until Monday, however, it had been unclear whether this power to search
widely extended to the personal belongings of a presumably innocent passenger.

The issue came before the court when state judges in Wyoming threw out drug
evidence found in the purse of Sandra Houghton, a passenger in a car driven
by a man who had a syringe sticking out of his front pocket. The search of
Houghton's purse violated the 4th Amendment, the Wyoming Supreme Court said,
because police had no reason to suspect her of 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, depending who claimed them. "One would expect
passengerconfederates 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 that 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 fullblown
vehicle search.

Iowa police maintained that they could routinely inspect the inside of a car
whenever they stopped a motorist, even if they had no reason to suspect him
or her of wrongdoing.

The high court rejected that policy as unconstitutional and stressed that
officers must have a specific reason for looking under a car's seats and in
the glove compartment.

Officers are free to look into the car with a flashlight, the court said,
and they may order passengers out of a vehicle to make sure they are not
carrying weapons. They may also ask drivers to consent to a full search.

Surprisingly, defense lawyers said, many persons consent, even when they
have drugs hidden in the car.

Still, if the officers lack consent or a reason to suspect other wrongdoing,
a "fullblown search of an automobile" is not justified, the court said in
its December ruling in Knowles vs. Iowa. That decision overturned a
marijuana conviction against Patrick Knowles, who was stopped for speeding
in the town of Newton, Iowa.

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 in turn prompted the officers to search his car and his two passengers,
including 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
state Supreme Court ruled the search of her purse illegal.

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