SEARCHES OF CARS, DRIVERS BARRED

Supreme Court: Justices' 9-0 ruling in speeding case from Iowa deals a
rebuff to law enforcement officers.

WASHINGTON -- In an unusual rebuff to law-enforcement organizations, the
Supreme Court on Tuesday voted 9-0 to bar police officers from searching
motorists and vehicles stopped for routine traffic violations.

Twenty-five years ago, citing a need to disarm suspects and preserve
evidence, the court allowed officers to conduct full searches while making
an arrest.

But in a speeding case from Iowa, the justices said such intrusive searches
are unconstitutional when an officer decides not to arrest a motorist, but
to hand him a ticket instead.

The decision ran counter to the conservative Supreme Court's tendency to
give the police greater leeway to conduct searches and seizures.

``The threat to officer safety from issuing a traffic citation is a good
deal less than in the case of (an) arrest,'' Chief Justice William Rehnquist
said for the court. ``A routine traffic stop . . . is a relatively brief
encounter.''

Furthermore, Rehnquist said, there was no risk of destruction of evidence in
such traffic offenses as speeding.

``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,'' he
said.

The ruling does not affect law-enforcement practices in any state except
Iowa, which has a law that permits police officers to make an arrest or
issue a citation for any traffic violation. The Iowa law also allows
officers to conduct a full search even when they elect -- as they usually
do -- to issue a citation and let the motorist drive away.

In the case decided Tuesday, Officer Ronald Cook stopped Patrick Knowles in
1996 after clocking Knowles' car at 43 mph -- 18 mph over the speed limit --
in Newton, a small city east of Des Moines.

Although he lacked Knowles' consent or reasonable cause to search, Cook
relied on Iowa law and looked through the car. Under the driver's seat, the
officer found a bag of marijuana and a pipe. Knowles was convicted of
marijuana offenses and sentenced to 90 days in jail. The Iowa Supreme Court
upheld the conviction by a 5-4 vote last October.

Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state court decision,
effectively invalidating the conviction and sentence of Knowles, 37, who
lives in Monroe and works in a plastics factory.

Robert T. Scully, executive director of the National Association of Police
Organizations, said he was disappointed by the Supreme Court ruling because
he considers traffic stops inherently risky to the police.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the police organization, representing
220,000 officers, cited FBI statistics showing that 4,333 officers were
assaulted with weapons, and 90 were killed, during traffic stops and
pursuits from 1987 through 1996.

``The crucial point,'' the organization's brief said, ``is that a
considerable number of deaths and many more assaults can be prevented'' if
officers are allowed to make complete searches for weapons during traffic
stops.

But Rehnquist observed that previous Supreme Court decisions give police
officers considerable authority to protect themselves from danger. They may
order the driver and passengers out of a car and conduct a ``pat-down'' of
anyone they reasonably suspect might be armed and dangerous, Rehnquist said.

``The considerably greater intrusion'' of a complete search, he said, is
unjustified in a routine traffic stop.

Checked-by: Don Beck