HIGH COURT OKS BROADER CAR SEARCHES

Police can search the personal belongings of all passengers inside a
car when lawfully seeking criminal evidence against the driver, the
Supreme Court ruled today.

By a 6-3 vote in a Wyoming case, the court expanded the already
considerable police power to search motor vehicles without a court
warrant.

"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," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said, "Today, instead of
adhering to the settled distinction between drivers and passengers,
the court fashions a new rule."

Under that rule, Stevens said, police might be able to search a taxi
passenger's briefcase if they had reason to believe the driver had a
syringe somewhere in his vehicle.

In other cases today, the court:

*Said criminal defendants who plead guilty have a constitutional right
to remain silent at sentencing without judges holding it against them,
the Supreme Court ruled today. Judges cannot impose harsher punishment
if such defendants refuse to give details about the crime, said the
justices' 5-4 decision in a Pennsylvania drug case.

*Ruled prosecutors cannot be sued for having lawyers searched and
interfering with their ability to advise a client appearing before a
grand jury, the Supreme Court said today. The court ruled unanimously
that such action by California prosecutors in the Menendez brothers'
murder case did not violate a lawyer's constitutional right to
practice his profession.

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

The peculiar Wyoming case that spurred today's decision on car
searches began as 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 in the early morning hours of July 23, 1995. After a
Highway Patrol officer saw a hypodermic syringe in Young's pocket,
Young candidly said 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.

Today's decision reversed the state court's ruling.

"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 Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy,
Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer.

Joining Stevens in dissent were Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg.