PUBLIC TRANSIT SEARCHES OK'D

Court Says Police Can Use Subtle Pressure

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can subtly pressure
passengers on buses, trains and other public-transit systems to agree to be
searched, saying officers need not tell the riders they have a right to refuse.

The 6-3 ruling upholds a common tactic in the war on drugs. Bush
administration lawyers said these mass searches will also be useful in the
war on terrorism.

Under the Fourth Amendment, a police officer normally cannot search or
seize a person without some evidence of wrongdoing. But that does not stop
officers from asking people to allow themselves to be searched, the
justices said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy described such encounters as ``consensual'' and
``voluntary,'' even when the officers are armed and they have blocked the
aisles of a bus.

Monday's decision overturned a lower court in Atlanta which said a ``show
of authority'' by armed officers should not be allowed to intimidate people
into giving up privacy rights.

That ruling threw out drug evidence seized from two men who were arrested
in Tallahassee, Fla., where the Greyhound bus they were riding had stopped.

Two passengers, Christopher Drayton and Clifton Brown, were wearing heavy
jackets and baggy pants on a warm day. An officer described them as being
overly cooperative.

After they freely agreed to have him check their bags in the overhead
luggage rack, the officer said in a low voice, ``Mind if I check you?''

The men did not respond directly, except to lift their hands. While two
officers stood by, the third patted down the men and felt a hard object on
the inside of their thighs. They were carrying packages of cocaine wrapped
in duct tape.

The two men were convicted on drug-trafficking charges. But the U.S. Court
of Appeals in Atlanta ruled the search was coercive and unreasonable
because no reasonable person would think he was free to refuse.

Disagreeing, Kennedy said the encounter between the officers and the
passengers was neither ``coercive nor confrontational. There was no
application of force, no intimidating movement, no overwhelming show of
force, no brandishing of weapons, no blocking of exits, no threat, no
command, not even an authoritative tone of voice,'' he wrote.

It is true the officers did not tell the men that they could refuse to be
searched, Kennedy said. But, he added, the court has already made it clear
that police officers need not ``always inform citizens of their right to
refuse when seeking permission to conduct a warrantless consent search.''

In dissent, Justice David Souter said the majority's opinion had an ``air
of unreality'' about it. ``No reasonable passenger could have believed . .
. he had a free choice to ignore the police altogether,'' he said. Justices
John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed.

In other action Monday, the high court delivered a blow to disabled
Americans who want cash awards from cities and states that fail to build
wheelchair ramps and make other accommodations. It was the court's fourth
setback for the disabled this year.

Government agencies can be forced to pay actual damages but not punitive
damages for violating a landmark disabilities law, the court ruled.

The court heard four cases involving the 1990 Americans With Disabilities
Act in the term that ends next week. All four rulings went against the
disabled.

With Monday's decision in the least-watched case of the four, leaders of
city and state agencies can relax in the knowledge they won't face
unpredictable jury awards, said Lawrence S. Robbins, attorney for a city
police board sued in the case.

Some cities and states had argued they could be bankrupted by large jury
awards.

The ruling, which is not limited to the Americans With Disabilities Act,
restricts cash awards under laws that involve federal grants that do not
spell out whether punitive damages are allowed.

The Supreme Court agreed 9-0 that a paraplegic man injured while being
taken to jail in Kansas City, Mo., was not entitled to $1.2 million in
punitive damages. Three justices, Stevens, Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer,
said the decision was written too broadly but they agreed with the outcome.