POLICE NEED CAUSE TO SEARCH MOTORISTS' CARS

What's lawful?; Hunches and intuition aren't enough for a
once-over.

Sherida Felders admits she was speeding as she traveled on Interstate
15 in November, but says the search by a Utah Highway Patrol officer
of her Jeep Commander for drugs was based on racial profiling.

A lawsuit filed by Felders and her two teenage passengers, all blacks,
over their alleged 2 1/2-hour roadside detention raises the question
of when police can lawfully search a vehicle without a warrant.

Two Salt Lake City attorneys who are not involved in the case said
law-enforcement officers must have a reason to believe a crime has
occurred before they can do more than issue a ticket.

Civil-rights lawyer Brian Barnard said a stop has to be justified in
the first place, meaning officers must have a reasonable suspicion
that a driver is committing a traffic offense. Once the initial
purpose for a stop is concluded -- for example, a traffic citation has
been written -- the motorist must be allowed to depart unless the
officer has probable cause to suspect other illegal activity, such as
spotting a gun inside the car, he said.

"Police cannot stop or search people based on a hunch or intuition,"
he said.

If an officer sees an illegal item in plain view, such as marijuana or
an open container of liquor in the passenger compartment, the officer
can seize the item, Barnard said. But absent some illegal conduct or
circumstances, that would not justify a search of the entire vehicle
without a warrant, he said.

A vehicle can be searched with permission of the driver, but the
consent must be freely given.

"Telling the person, 'We'll wait here at the side of the road with you
in handcuffs in the winter snow for two hours until I can get a
warrant or you can voluntarily consent' does not result in voluntary
consent," Barnard said.

Clayton Simms, a criminal defense attorney, said police must focus on
the crime that led to the stop in the first place. If other evidence
surfaces after a stop, such as the smell of alcohol on the driver's
breath, officers can put the motorist through sobriety tests, he said.

"You can't just stop a person for Activity A and then start searching
the car for Crime B unless you have evidence of that," Simms said.

He said whether a stop exceeds its scope depends on a number of
factors, such as the reason for stopping the driver, the length of the
detention, the extent of the search and the number of officers involved.