TRAFFIC STOP IS NO REASON FOR A FULL SEARCH, COURT RULES

In a rare win for privacy rights, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
yesterday 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, the lawyer representing Iowa
acknowledged that the state law would even 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 yesterday 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 on 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."

The Iowa Supreme Court interpreted that provision to let police
conduct a search whenever they could have arrested someone, even if
they decide to issue a citation instead.

Checked-by: derek rea