HIGH COURT LIMITS SEARCHES

Routine Traffic Stop Doesn'T Give Officer Authority

WASHINGTON - Police may not conduct a full-blown search of motorists
and their vehicles after pulling them over and ticketing them for
speeding or other minor traffic violations, the Supreme Court ruled
unanimously Tuesday.

In an opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the justices
overturned a lower court ruling. It would have extended the
long-standing police authority to search cars when a motorist is
arrested to include nonarrest situations involving only traffic citations.

The decision was a rare victory for a defendant who contended that
police had illegally rummaged through his car. In recent decades, the
justices have narrowly interpreted the Fourth Amendment protection
against unreasonable searches and seizures, particularly in regard to
motorists, to give police broad authority to look through vehicles
without first obtaining a warrant.

But the fact that Tuesday's ruling was unanimous shows how far the
police practice at issue in the case went.

Iowa permitted police to conduct a full search after writing up a
traffic citation. A handful of other states had begun the practice,
but the policy in most states has been to allow such searches only
when the driver has been arrested and in custody.

Sgt. Jim Chandler, a spokesman for the Dallas Police Department, said
the high court's ruling probably would not affect the way police in
Dallas conduct searches.

"Generally, searches in Texas are conducted based on probable cause,"
he said. "It doesn't sound like it would affect Texas or Dallas.
Generally, our policy here is that unless there is probable cause for
an officer to conduct a search, it wouldn't happen."

Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety in
Austin, said the ruling didn't seem likely to affect his agency, either.

The Iowa case, closely followed by police organizations and civil
libertarians, began when a police officer in a town near Des Moines
stopped Patrick Knowles for driving 43 mph in a 25-mph zone.

The officer issued a citation, then conducted a full search of Mr.
Knowles' car, finding marijuana and a "pot pipe." Mr. Knowles was
charged with marijuana possession.

Mr. Knowles tried to keep the evidence out of trial, contending that
the officer had violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The Supreme
Court ruled in 1973 that police can extensively search when a driver
is arrested. Mr. Knowles maintained that because he was not arrested,
there was no reason for a full search.

The officer conceded that he did not suspect Mr. Knowles of
involvement in criminal activity; such suspicion might have given him
grounds for the search.

Lower courts ruled against Mr. Knowles, reasoning that because Iowa
law allowed police to arrest someone for speeding, police were allowed
an extensive search.

But in reversing that ruling, the Supreme Court pointed to the
distinct rationales for permitting a warrantless search when a
motorist is arrested: the need to disarm the suspect so he can be
taken into custody and the need to preserve evidence for a trial.

Justice Rehnquist said neither rationale could justify the search in
Mr. Knowles' case: "While the concern for officer safety in . . . [a
traffic stop] may justify the 'minimal' additional intrusion of
ordering a driver and passengers out of the car, it does not by itself
justify the often considerably greater intrusion attending a full
field-type search."

He added that a routine speeding violation is unlikely to create the
need for preserving evidence.

"Once Knowles was stopped for speeding and issued a citation, all the
evidence necessary to prosecute that offense had been obtained,"
Justice Rehnquist wrote in the case, Knowles vs. Iowa. "No further
evidence of excessive speed was going to be found."

Justice Rehnquist was ticketed in 1986 for driving 41 mph in a 30-mph
zone in Virginia.

Checked-by: derek rea