WARNING FOR SEARCH ON BUS NOT REQUIRED

A police posse seeking to search passengers and their luggage on buses or
other public transportation need not warn suspects that they have a right
to refuse a search and leave, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

Although one pro-police group voiced qualms about the 6-3 decision that
nullified an appeals court's ground rules requiring police to warn suspects
before searching for drugs and weapons, the Justice Department predicted
that it will buttress anti-terrorism efforts.

"Police officers act in full accord with the law when they ask citizens for
consent," said the decision written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined
by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence
Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Sandra Day O'Connor, who did not repeat her
prior warnings against extending police search powers.

"It is beyond question that had this encounter occurred on the street, it
would be constitutional. The fact that an encounter takes place on a bus
does not on its own transform standard police questioning of citizens into
an illegal seizure," the high court said.

The majority heavily stressed the fact that the three detectives did not
make a "show of force" by brandishing guns, blocking the exit or otherwise
being coercive when they boarded a Greyhound bus and asked whether they
could search Christopher Drayton and Clifton Brown Jr.

"It reinforces the rule of law for the citizen to advise the police of his
or her wishes and for the police to act in reliance on that understanding,"
the court said in ruling voluntary the search of two cocaine traffickers by
three officers after a layover Feb. 4, 1999, at the bus station in
Tallahassee, Fla.

Justices David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued
a dissent saying volunteering for a search was not at issue because the
initial seizure of the men was unconstitutional, a stance that resonated in
an unusual quarter at the pro-police Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

The CJLF often files friend-of-the court briefs in such cases and generally
issues statements of support even when it is not a party, but CJLF legal
director Kent Scheidegger pointedly avoided comment on the merits of
yesterday's decision.

"There are some things that, even though they may be constitutional, I
don't think I want to support, and I think they're pushing the limits
there," said Mr. Scheidegger, who said Fourth Amendment cases often include
descriptions of people consenting to things they would be wiser to avoid.

Donna Shea, legal director of the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, said police will apply the decision to justify aggressive
questioning because it "gives bus passengers a lesser expectation of privacy."

"I think that's unconstitutional," she said.

In the case, both men had packets of cocaine -- a total of 1.7 pounds --
taped to their thighs under baggy pants. Drayton was sentenced to 10 years,
and Brown received seven years and four months.

"A police officer who is certain to get his way has no need to shout," said
the dissenters, who scoffed at the idea that it would be reasonable to
refuse a search.

"It is very hard to imagine that either Brown or Drayton would have
believed that he stood to lose nothing if he refused to cooperate with the
police, or that he had any free choice to ignore the police altogether,"
they said.

The majority responded that discussion about consenting to a police request
to search has "a weight and dignity of its own [that] dispels inferences of
coercion" and said precautions that have become commonplace at airports
have not yet been justified for buses and trains.

"Consensual interactions between police officers and citizens on means of
public transportation are an important part of the national effort to
combat the flow of illegal narcotics and weapons," U.S. Solicitor General
Theodore Olson said when he asked the court to reinstate the convictions.

He said a contrary decision could have undermined security across the
nation's transportation system.

Yesterday's ruling reversed a July 24, 2000, decision by the 11th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which said the absence of suspicious
behavior meant no search was justified. The appeals court said the 25 to 30
passengers on the Detroit-bound bus were intimidated when the police took
charge, because the suspects didn't feel free to leave or to refuse the
search in such confined spaces.

That decision set out new search ground rules requiring police to inform
suspects that they need not cooperate, then relied on those ground rules to
overturn the men's cocaine-trafficking convictions.

Among many other actions yesterday, the justices:

. Unanimously reversed an appeals court ruling that allowed a paraplegic
prisoner to win $1.2 million in punitive damages from Kansas City, Mo.,
under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Jeffrey Gorman was injured in
1992 in a police patrol wagon unequipped to transport wheelchair patients
and was awarded $1 million by the jury for actual damages plus $1.2 million
more in punitive damages. Because federal money may not be used to pay
punitive damages, the court said, individuals suing governments for not
accommodating the disabled may not seek punitive awards.

. Issued an unsigned opinion overturning an order that mass murderer George
Banks be resentenced for his conviction in 13 deaths during a 1982 shooting
rampage in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The court said lower courts must reconsider
whether a 1988 decision on jury instructions must be applied retroactively.

. Refused to consider letting satellite companies decide which local
stations to air, leaving in place a decision that all local stations be
included under the same "must-carry" rules imposed on cable systems in a
5-4 decision in 1997.

. Declined to hear an appeal challenging federal authority to enforce
gambling laws on the Internet. Jay Cohen, former president of Antigua-based
World Sports Exchange, had appealed a 21-month prison sentence for
violating the U.S. Wire Wager Act.