COURT RULES POLICE DON'T HAVE TO SAY HOW TO RECLAIM SEIZED PROPERTY

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police who seize someone's property during a search do
not have to provide information on how to get it back later, the Supreme
Court ruled Wednesday.

The court voted unanimously to kill a California couple's lawsuit over the
difficulty they had recovering cash taken by police during a search of
their home.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court that when police seize
property under a search warrant, due process requires them to give notice
that the property was taken. Otherwise, the property's owner might not know
who took it, he said.

But Kennedy added, "Once the property owner is informed that his property
has been seized, he can turn to ... public sources to learn about the
remedial procedures" for recovering the property later.

"The city need not take other steps to inform him of his options," Kennedy
said.

Lawrence and Clara Perkins' home was searched by police in West Covina,
California, in May 1993. The couple had rented a room to a man linked to a
shooting death elsewhere in the town.

Among the items seized from the house was $2,469 in cash belonging to the
Perkinses.

No one was at home when the house was searched, but police left a note
saying they conducted the search under a court warrant. The note included a
list of the items seized and contained a phone number to obtain further
information.

Lawrence Perkins called the number and was told he needed a court order to
get the money returned. Later, he was told there was nothing at the
municipal courthouse under his name and that he needed a case number or
search warrant number. No city employee told him how to find those numbers.

The Perkinses sued the city in 1993, saying the search violated their
constitutional rights. The city returned the cash in mid-1994.

A federal judge ruled for the city, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals said the city violated Perkins' constitutional rights by giving
inadequate notice on how to recover the cash.

Wednesday, the Supreme Court said the appeals court was wrong.

To uphold that ruling, "we would be required to find that due process
requires notice that not one state or the federal government has seen fit
to require," Kennedy wrote.

His opinion was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices
John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for himself and Justice Antonin Scalia,
agreed with the result.

The case is City of West Covina vs. Perkins, 97-1230.