Search For Speeding? Justices Wary

Law: The Supreme Court considers whether a mere traffic stop gave Iowa
police license to look in the car.

Washington-The state of Iowa asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to uphold a
state law that gives the police essentially blanket authority to search a
car after issuing the driver a citation for speeding or another routine
traffic violation.

The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the law,the only one of its kind,by a 5-4
vote last year.But the justices responded to the state's arguments with
considerable wariness. Justices across the ideological spectrum worried
aloud that an expansion of the current rule, under which the police may
conduct a search as an aspect of arresting someone, would give the police
too much power.

The case is an appeal by a man who was stopped for driving 43 mph zone. The
police officer gave him a speeding ticket after determining that his
license was valid and that there were no outstanding warrants for his
arrest. Then the officer searched the car, finding a small quantity of
marijuana and a pipe, and arrested him.

Twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court validated a practice known as
"search incident to arrest," which is an exception to the Fourth Amendment
requirement that a search be supported by probable cause, or at least some
level of suspicion of a crime.

Once there was probable cause to make an arrest, the court said in United
States vs. Robinson, a search of the person arrested, as well as the area
under his control, would be deemed reasonable, without further need to
establish probable cause to search. It made sense, the court said in the
1973 case, to authorize such a search to preserve evidence and to protect
the arresting officers' safety.

In the argument Tuesday, several justices, including the court's
conservative members, suggested that the rationale of the "search incident
to arrest" doctrine did not apply in the context of a simple speeding ticket.

With a speeding violation, "the offense is complete when the car is brought
to a stop," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said, adding, "There is no
more evidence to look for."

Addressing Bridget A. Chambers, an assistant attorney general from Iowa,
the chief justice said, "If you'd come here on a second-degree burglary, it
might have been different."

The Iowa law, which dates to 1983, authorizes the issuance of a citation
"in lieu of arrest or in lieu of continued custody" for a variety of
offenses. The law then provides that police officers who issue such
citations have the same authority to search that they would have if they
made a formal arrest.

Paul Roseberg, the lawyer for the arrested motorist, Patrick Knowles, told
the justices that while searches in connection with actual arrests have a
long legal tradition behind them, that was not the case when no arrest had
taken place. Roenberg urged the justices to maintain a clear distinction
between the two situations, a proposition that several members of the court
appeared to find attractive.

Addressing Chambers, the lawyer representing Iowa, Justice David H. Souter
said, "Would it make sense, in order to keep not only our constitutional
categories but our constitutional protections in place, to require a
custodial arrest?" He answered his own question: "Then we would all know
where we stand."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginburg said to Chanbers, "It does seem an enormous
amount of authority to put in the hands of the police."

Several justices raised the prospect that the police, given such authority,
would be tempted to manipulate the system by issuing a ticket, searching
the car, and then making a formal arrest if the search turned up evidence
of a crime. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy observed that rather than a search
incident to an arrest, the state was seeking authority for "arrest incident
to search," inviting "an abuse of authority" by the police.

Chambers replied that while there "could conceivably" be such abuses, the
public would respond so negatively that the Iowa Legislature would
intervene and put an end to the practice.

The case, Knowles vs. Iowa, No. 97-7597, has attracted considerable
attention, with organizations of police officers urging the court to uphold
the law. In a series of cases in recent years, the court has steadily
increased the authority of the police in traffic-stop situations, giving
police the power to order drivers and passengers out of a car and to seek
consent for searches in routine traffic stops without advising the driver
that consent may be withheld. So one question underlying the proceeding in
the courtroom Tuesday was whether this case presented the justices with a
line they would not care to cross.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski