Pubdate: 6 Apr 1999
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 1999 San Francisco Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/
Author: Joan Biskupic, Washington Post
Section: Page A3

RULING EXPANDS POLICE POWERS IN CAR SEARCHES

High court lets officers check passengers' stuff

The Supreme Court significantly curtailed the privacy rights of automobile
passengers yesterday by ruling 6 to 3 that a police officer may search a
passenger's belongings simply because he suspects that the driver has done
something wrong.

The decision gives police officers broader powers to scour a car for drugs
and other contraband, and for the first time makes passengers who are not
suspected of wrongdoing subject to warrantless searches.

For decades the court has allowed officers to extensively inspect a
driver's car and its compartments in myriad situations without a warrant,
provided the police have probable cause to believe the driver had committed
some crime. But until yesterday the justices had never permitted the search
of personal items of a passenger who was suspected of no wrongdoing.

The court normally requires that, to comply with the Fourth Amendment
protection against unreasonable searches, police must first obtain a
warrant before going through people's possessions. Police can act without a
warrant if officers have grounds to believe an individual is breaking the
law. Now, passengers can expect to have to submit to a search of their
belongings by virtue of their mere presence in the car and not because of
anything they do.

``Passengers, no less than drivers, possess a reduced expectation of
privacy with regard to the property that they transport in cars, which
travel public thoroughfares,'' Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority
decision upholding a Wyoming state trooper's search of a female passenger's
purse after a male driver was stopped and suspected of concealing drugs.

Scalia was joined in the majority by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and
Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen
Breyer.

In their dissent, Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg said that by abandoning ``the settled distinction between drivers
and passengers,'' the decision seriously intrudes on privacy rights.

Against the backdrop of the nation's crusade on drugs and debate over how
far police go, advocates on both sides were quick to lash out or
alternatively laud the decision.

``We're becoming a police state. This ruling tells the police that when
they pull over a car to investigate a driver, they can search any one of us
in the vehicle for any reason or no reason whatsoever,'' said Denver
attorney Larry Pozner, president of the National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers.

Donna Domonkos, appellate counsel in Wyoming's public defender office who
represented the woman who was caught with drug paraphernalia and
methamphetamine in her purse, complained that the ruling ``presumes guilt
by association.''

But Robert Scully, executive director of the National Association of Police
Organizations, praised the decision ``for giving officers the tools they
need to do their job.''

Deputy Wyoming Attorney General Paul Rehurek added that it was unreasonable
to think police could separate out items in a vehicle by ownership and
whether individual passengers were suspected of wrongdoing.

The case began in July 1995 when a Wyoming trooper stopped a car driven by
David Young because of a faulty brake light. The officer noticed a
hypodermic syringe in Young's shirt pocket, and as Scalia's opinion noted,
Young admitted ``with refreshing candor . . . that he used it to take drugs.''

With that admission, the officer began searching the car for contraband. On
the back seat, he found passenger Sandra Houghton's purse. The officer, who
said he lacked sufficient grounds to suspect Houghton, nonetheless searched
her purse. Houghton was convicted of methamphetamine possession. She then
appealed saying that the search violated her Fourth Amendment rights.

The case is Wyoming vs. Houghton, 98-184. 
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