COURT PUTS BRAKES ON POLICE SEARCHES

Traffic Violation not Reason Enough

In a rare win for privacy rights, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that
police cannot search people and their cars after merely ticketing them for
routine traffic violations.

Such a search - without suspicion of other wrongdoing - is unreasonable and
unconstitutional, the court ruled unanimously in an Iowa case.

The justices said police unlawfully searched an Iowa man's car after he was
stopped for speeding. The search found marijuana and a pipe in Patrick
Knowles' car.

The decision amounted to "a pretty resounding no" to police, said Knowles'
lawyer, Paul Rosenberg. Allowing the search would have created a "very big
category of permissible searches," he said.

"Which of us has not at some point gone over the speed limit or made an
illegal left turn?" added Brooklyn Law Professor Susan Herman, who signed a
friend-of-the-court brief on Knowles' behalf.

Even Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote the court's opinion, was
ticketed in 1986 for driving 41 mph in a 30 mph zone in his hometown of
Arlington, Va.

During arguments in the case last month, Iowa's lawyer acknowledged the
state law would let police search someone stopped for jaywalking.

The ruling disappointed the National Association of Police Organizations.
Traffic stops are "one of the least predictable and most dangerous duties
of a law enforcement officer," said Robert Scully, the group's executive
director.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that police can search people after
arresting them, citing a need to disarm suspects and preserve evidence.

But Rehnquist wrote for the court Tuesday that those needs are not as great
when someone is simply being given a traffic citation.

Concern for officer safety may justify ordering a driver and passengers out
of the car but "does not by itself justify the often considerably greater
intrusion attending a full field-type search," Rehnquist said.

Police already have the authority to perform a pat-down search of motorists
if the officer has reason to suspect they may be armed, the chief justice
noted. He also discounted prosecutors' argument that officers needed to
search Knowles' car to preserve evidence.

"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,"
Rehnquist said.

The decision ran counter to the court's trend over the past several decades
of dramatically narrowing the privacy rights afforded by the Constitution's
Fourth Amendment.

Just last week, the justices ruled that people who briefly visit someone's
home do not have the same protection against a police search as an
overnight guest or their host.

Privacy rights have been judged most vulnerable when someone is in a
vehicle. The court has said drivers and passengers can be ordered out of a
car during a traffic stop, and officers can frisk them if they are
suspected of concealing a weapon.

A series of Supreme Court decisions also has made it easier for police to
search seized vehicles without first getting a court warrant. Police
generally do not need warrants before searching cars they reasonably
believe are carrying narcotics, even if no emergency exists.

Knowles was pulled over for speeding March 6, 1996, in Newton, Iowa. An
officer gave him a speeding ticket and then searched Knowles and his car's
passenger compartment. He was charged with possessing marijuana, convicted
and sentenced to 90 days in jail.

An Iowa law lets police either make an arrest or issue a citation for any
traffic violation. If they issue a citation, they can make an "otherwise
lawful search."

Doug Marek, Iowa deputy attorney general, said his office was disappointed
but not surprised by the ruling.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson