HIGH COURT RESTRICTS SEARCHES IN TRAFFIC STOPS

WASHINGTON Police officers cannot routinely search drivers and their
cars after stopping them for traffic violations, the Supreme Court
ruled Tuesday.

The 9-0 decision marked a rare win for privacy rights and overturned
the drug conviction of an Iowa man who was stopped for speeding,
searched and then arrested when an officer found a bag of marijuana
under his seat.

Iowa allows its police officers to arrest anyone who violates a
traffic law and to search their vehicles. This broad authority to
search violates the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled.

The officer was not in danger when he wrote the traffic ticket, said
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and the speeding violation itself
did not justify a full-blown search of the car.

Tuesday's unanimous decision breaks a string of rulings in recent
years that have given officers more authority to stop vehicles and
search their contents.

Officers who fear for their safety can require drivers and passengers
to step out of the car to be checked for weapons. Further, officers
who have reason to believe a driver is carrying drugs can search the
vehicle.

But the Supreme Court drew a line at allowing searches during routine
traffic stops where there is no apparent danger and no evidence of
other criminal activity.

In 1973, the Supreme Court said searches were justifiable in cases
where a suspect is arrested. Officers required the authority to disarm
the person, if necessary, and to search for evidence that the suspect
may be carrying or have in his vehicle.

But Rehnquist said those rationales do not apply when a driver
violates a traffic law. "A routine traffic stop is a relatively brief
encounter and is (not) analogous to a formal arrest," the chief
justice wrote. While an officer always faces some danger, that "does
not by itself justify the often considerably greater intrusion (on the
driver's privacy) attending a full field-type search."

On March 9, 1996, Patrick Knowles was driving at 43 m.p.h. in Newton,
Iowa, on a road where the speed limit was 25 m.p.h. A police officer
gave him a speeding ticket, and without getting his consent, searched
his vehicle and found the marijuana and a pipe used for smoking it.

Knowles challenged the search as unconstitutional, but the Iowa courts
upheld it.

The case tested whether such an open-ended search power would be
endorsed by the Supreme Court. If so, millions of Americans could have
faced routine searches following traffic stops, lawyers with the
American Civil Liberties Union told the court.

Rehnquist agreed that danger to the officers does not justify arrests
in all traffic stops. Moreover, there is no need for a further search
for evidence to bolster a case involving a traffic stop, he added.

"Once Knowles was stopped for speeding and issued a citation, all the
evidence necessary to prosecute that offense had been obtained," he
wrote.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady