Pubdate: Tue, 05 Mar 2002
Source: Northwest Florida Daily News (FL)
Copyright: 2002 Northwest Florida Daily News
Contact:  http://www.nwfdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/313
Author: The Associated Press

N.J. SUPREME COURT LIMITS CAR SEARCHES

Police cannot ask to search a vehicle they have stopped unless there
is reasonable suspicion that criminal activity has occurred, the state
Supreme Court ruled.

In a 5-0 decision issued Monday, the court said motorists need
protection because of "widespread abuses" by police and the state's
1999 admission that troopers had practiced racial profiling.

Such protection will prevent police from "turning routine traffic
stops into a fishing expedition for criminal activity unrelated to the
lawful stop," Justice James Coleman wrote.

The court said the state constitution protects motorists from consent
searches, in which police ask motorists to sign a waiver that allows
them to search their car without a warrant.

The court stressed that its ruling applies only to traffic stops of
individual motorists, and not to traffic checkpoints or roadblocks,
such as those used to catch drunken drivers.

The ruling upheld a June 2000 state appellate court decision that
reversed the 1998 conviction of Steven Carty, who was found guilty of
drug possession after state police found cocaine in his shirt during a
1997 traffic stop.

Roger Shatzkin, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's office,
said the ruling "should really have no effect on the State Police"
because their internal rules already require them to have reasonable
suspicion in order to conduct a consent search.

The Rev. Reginald Jackson, executive director of the state Black
Ministers Council, said he hoped the ruling will encourage the state
Legislature to ban consent searches entirely.
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MAP posted-by: S Heath(DPF of Florida)