HIGH COURT CURBS POWER OF POLICE TO SEARCH CARS

WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court ruled that police couldn't search the
car of a person arrested unless the officer's safety was threatened
or there was reason to think the car contained evidence of a crime,
reviving a constitutional protection against unreasonable searches.

The court effectively closed a loophole opened in a 1981 opinion that
has been widely interpreted to allow police, without a warrant, to
search cars--as well as bags or containers within them -- when they
arrest a driver or passenger.

Tuesday's 5-4 decision scrambled the court's typical ideological
lineup, with conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas
joining liberals John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg in the majority. Dissenters included liberal leaning Justice
Stephen Breyer, conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justice
Samuel Alito, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has frequently cast
the court's deciding vote in other cases.

Writing for the majority, Justice Stevens cited one of the landmark
opinions of the court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, which held
that warrantless searches are inherently unreasonable apart from "a
few specifically established and narrow exceptions."

"Officer safety and evidence preservation," often significant
concerns during arrests, fall among those exceptions, Justice Stevens
wrote, so police can search areas of the car within reach of the
suspect for weapons or evidence. If they turn up evidence of a
different crime during such a search, it can be used against the suspect.

In the case before the court, Arizona v. Gant, the suspect, Rodney
Gant, arrested for a traffic violation, already had been handcuffed
and seated in the back of a squad car. Tucson, Ariz., police then
searched Mr. Gant's car, finding a gun and cocaine. Mr. Gant was
convicted of drug offenses and sentenced to three years.

The Arizona Supreme Court threw out the conviction for relying on
evidence taken in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which bars
"unreasonable searches and seizures." In upholding the state court,
Justice Stevens wrote that Mr. Gant offered no threat to the officers
and there was no chance the car contained evidence of the crime for
which he was arrested, driving on a suspended license.

The court has tended to give police wide leeway in searching people
during vehicle stops. In Tuesday's opinion, the justices reminded
police that such power has limits. Although the privacy interest in
one's car is lower than for a home, it "is nevertheless important and
deserving of constitutional protection," Justice Stevens wrote.

The Fourth Amendment was drafted to deny "police officers unbridled
discretion to rummage at will among a person's private effects,"
Justice Stevens wrote.

In dissent, Justice Alito wrote that police had come to assume their
blanket power to search cars upon arrest, and that the decision "will
cause suppression of evidence gathered in many searches carried out
in good-faith reliance on well-settled case law."

Today, police are "trained to search every car in which someone was
arrested, whether it was for a bench warrant or drunk driving," said
Harry Stern, a partner at Rains Lucia Stern in Pleasant Hill, Calif.,
who represents officers accused of misconduct. "I think the good news
from a police practices standpoint is that the ruling gives clear
guidance," said Mr. Stern, also a former police officer.

On Tuesday, the court heard arguments in another Fourth Amendment
case in Arizona, in which school employees strip-searched a teenage
student mistakenly suspected of hiding prescription medications in
her undergarments.

The justices previously have given public-school authorities license
to curtail First Amendment rights in an effort to discourage drug
use. While troubled by the student's ordeal, the justices seemed
likely to further limit students' Fourth Amendment rights. A decision
in the case, Safford Unified School District v. Redding, is expected
before July.