COPS & SEARCHES

A 9-0 ruling from today's ideologically fractured Supreme Court ought to
arrive with bolts of lightning and peals of thunder. After all, when
Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg can agree on anything, the country
should sit up and pay close attention.

Let us hope police departments across the country -- including, ahem,
Richmond's -- pay close attention to the Court's ruling in Knowles v. Iowa.
The opinion, written by Chief Justice William Rhenquist, strikes down a law
giving Iowa cops blanket power to search the vehicle of anyone stopped on
the road. The case involved an officer who stopped Patrick Knowles for
speeding and then, without suspicion of any other wrongdoing, searched
Knowles' car.

To the claim that the search was necessary to preserve evidence, Rehnquist
offered this retort: Once the officer stopped the vehicle, "all the
evidence necessary to prosecute the offense had been obtained. No further
evidence of excessive speed was going to be found either on the person of
the offender or in the passenger compartment of the car." The argument
about evidence was easy to shoot down because it obviously had been trumped
up to provide cover for an officer who searched out of curiosity, not
legitimate suspicion of criminal activity.

Police departments should understand why the need for legitimate suspicion
is not a hindrance to the execution of their duty but an essential part of
it. If their goal were merely catching bad guys, then suspicionless
searches, police checkpoints, even house-to-house ransackings would be
desirable. Indeed, a recent police checkpoint here in Richmond led to 14
arrests on drug charges.

But the ultimate role of the law is to protect the rights of citizens;
catching bad guys is but a subordinate means to the end. And those rights
include the right to be secure in one's person and property from
unreasonable search and seizure. A badge does not -- or should not --
confer authority to rummage through a person's belongings at random, any
more than it confers the authority to spray people with mace at random.
Cops ought to have a good reason, based on the behavior of the individual,
to do both. Without a reason the law is not the servant of the people, but
the people's master. Similarly, when police detain and search innocent
citizens without good cause, the law is no longer the the citizens' servant.

Checked-by: Richard Lake