Search
and
Seizure
Protections
Weakened
4/9/99
Marc Brandl, [email protected]Civil libertarians, defense lawyers and others say a Supreme Court ruling giving police greater powers to stop and search cars has further eroded Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizures. In a 6-3 decision issued last Monday (4/5), the Justices said that items belonging to a passenger may be searched while the officer is searching for criminal evidence against the driver. According to Donna Domonkos, a defense attorney who argued the case before the Supreme Court, the decision lowers the standard for probable cause. "Before they've always required some kind of suspicion of criminal activity, and now that's not required," she told the Week Online The decision stems from a case involving a routine traffic stop in Natrona County, Wyoming. The Highway patrol officer saw a hypodermic needle sticking out of the driver's pocket, which the driver acknowledged had been used to take drugs. Two more officers arrived to continue the search and two passengers were asked to get out of the car. One of the passengers, Sandra Houghton, left her purse in the back seat. The purse was searched and found to contain drug paraphernalia and liquid methamphetamine. She was convicted of a felony drug offense, but later appealed. The Wyoming Supreme Court agreed with Houghton, saying the police had not had probable cause to search her belongings. The Supreme Court decision overturns that ruling. The ruling only allows searches of items belonging to the passenger that aren't on the person. "The majority opinion did say that this wasn't authorizing a pocket search or even a frisk," said Jack King, public affairs director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It 'merely,' and I don't think of it as merely, authorizes the search of all containers in the vehicle. It was never disputed in the Houghton case that there was no probable cause to search the passenger's purse. What we have here is an absurd result." Wyoming ACLU spokesman Marty Johnson agreed. "This is yet another example of the Supreme Court putting its thumb on the scales of justice when it comes to balancing individual privacy versus the states interest in going after the scourge of drugs," he said. "This [decision] lowers the standards for passengers in a vehicle. You are now essentially giving up your right to privacy for simply getting into a vehicle." But members of the law enforcement community felt the decision was appropriate. Marty Pfiefer, a spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police said, "It is a very positive ruling. It makes it safer for the officer and better for the public. There is no longer a free ticket now. If you are in a car with someone that has contraband, there is no defense for that individual passing something off to a passenger to hide or secrete." Furthermore, he continued, "It simplifies the job of law enforcement in clarifying when officers can search a passenger. It eliminates some of the restrictions as far as who and what can be searched." Johnson disagrees. "The simplest way to do it is just to get rid of the 4th amendment entirely, which is what the U.S. Supreme Court seems to be trying to do," he said. A prior decision in the last session of the Supreme Court, Knowles v Iowa (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/070.html#nosearch) also involved the stopping and searching of cars. Patrick Knowles was pulled over for speeding at which point the officer decided to search the vehicle. In the Knowles case, the justices ruled that when a suspect is not arrested, they may only have probable cause to search a vehicle under two circumstances, danger to the police and prevention of the destruction of evidence.
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