COURT REVIEWS SCOPE OF COP SEARCHES

WASHINGTON (AP) Lawyers for Wyoming and the Clinton administration urged a
seemingly sympathetic Supreme Court on Tuesday to let police sometimes
search the personal belongings of all passengers inside motor vehicles
stopped for traffic violations.

A rule always denying such authority would be "very difficult for police to
apply (and) might be exceedingly unworkable," Justice Department lawyer
Barbara McDowell argued.

The court's decision, expected by July, could provide important new
guidelines on police powers and personal privacy for situations that daily
arise countless times nationwide.

One such incident occurred in 1995 when a car driven by David Young was
stopped for speeding on Interstate 25 in Natrona County, Wyo., in the early
morning hours. After a Highway Patrol officer saw a hypodermic syringe in
Young's pocket, Young 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 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 April, 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.

McDowell and Wyoming Deputy Attorney General Paul Rehurek urged the justices
to overturn the Wyoming court's ruling. They said police had reason to think
Young had drugs in the car, and the officers therefore should have been
allowed to search any container including Houghton's purse that might
hold the illegal goods.

At times, the lively hour-long argument session appeared to place the
rationales of two past Supreme Court decisions on a collision course.

The court in 1948 ruled that police generally may not search passengers in a
stopped vehicle without some reason to believe they, as opposed to the
driver, have broken some law.

In 1982, the justices said once police reasonably believe a vehicle contains
drugs or some other illegal goods they are free to search any container in
that vehicle where the contraband might be hidden.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist suggested that the 1982 decision was
aimed at providing police with a "bright line rule" because previous rulings
had "hopelessly confused the issue."

Rehnquist said he worried the Wyoming court's ruling would return courts to
"that case-by-case thing where nobody is going to know what the rule is."

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sandra Day O'Connor and
Antonin Scalia also voiced doubts about the state court ruling.

But Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg voiced concern that the
legal rationale to let police search passengers' personal belongings would
also allow searches of their clothing as well.

"It could be concealed in the pocket as easily as in the purse," Souter said
at one point.

Cheyenne lawyer Donna Domonkos, representing Houghton, urged the court to
adopt a rule that would protect passengers and items believed to be their
personal belongings from being searched unless police have "probable cause"
to believe those passengers of a crime.