COURT: SHORT-TERM GUESTS NOT PROTECTED FROM UNREASONABLE POLICE
SEARCHES

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Short-term guests at someone's home generally are not
constitutionally protected against unreasonable police searches, the Supreme
Court ruled today as it reinstated two Minnesota men's cocaine convictions.

``An overnight guest in a home may claim the protection of the Fourth
Amendment, but one who is merely present with the consent of the householder
may not,'' Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court.

Writing for herself and two other dissenters, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
said the decision ``undermines not only the security of short-term guests
but also the security of the home resident herself.''

The vote to reverse a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling was 6-3 but the
justices split 5-4 in deciding the scope of guests' privacy rights.

The court in 1990 ruled that overnight guests enjoy an ``expectation of
privacy'' that protect them against unreasonable searches and arrests by
police who do not have court warrants.

But today's decision drew a distinction between overnight guests and those
who stay but a few hours.

Rehnquist also relied on the fact that Wayne Thomas Carter and Melvin Johns
were arrested in an Eagan, Minn., home they had visited ``for a business
transaction.''

``There is no suggestion that they had a previous relationship with (the
apartment renter) or that there was any other purpose to their visit,'' he
said. ``Nor was there anything similar to the overnight guest relationship
... to suggest a degree of acceptance into the household.''

The ruling seemed to leave unresolved the rights of some temporary guests --
longtime poker buddies. It also appeared to discount the privacy rights of
the Avon lady and the pizza man, two examples of short-term visitors offered
by the justices when the case was argued in October.

Rehnquist's opinion was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin
Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer voted to overturn the Minnesota court's ruling but
in a concurring opinion said he agreed with the dissenters that the two
accused drug traffickers could claim some protection under the Fourth
Amendment, which guards against unreasonable police searches and seizures.

Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter joined Ginsburg's dissenting
opinion.

Carter and Johns were arrested in 1994 after a policeman acting on a tip
looked in an apartment window and saw the two and another person putting
white powder into plastic bags.

To see inside, the officer walked behind some bushes and looked through gaps
in the closed window blinds. The men were arrested when they left the
apartment and tried to drive away. A pouch containing cocaine was found in
the car.

The case is Carter vs. Minnesota, 97-1147.

Checked-by: Don Beck