The surest way to reduce the violation of the rights of women and minorities is to end marijuana prohibition, thereby ending the most common reason for violating the rights of all citizens in the circumstances created by this ruling.)

EARTH TO SUPREME COURT: WOMAN’S PURSE MORE THAN A CONTAINER

April 11, 1999
From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
editpage@seattle-pi.com
http://www.seattle-pi.com/
By MARIANNE MEANS, HEARST NEWSPAPERS

Marianne Means is Washington, D.C., columnist with Hearst Newspapers.

WASHINGTON—Somebody should tell the Supreme Court that a woman’s purse is more than just an ordinary "container."

But a purse? Fair game. Not technically attached to the body.

It’s merely attached to the heart and mind and personality of the woman carrying it, that’s all.

A purse is an extension of a woman’s identity. It is her very self, her lifeline, her support system.

Men carry billfolds to hold money and credit cards, usually in those pockets the court is protecting. But women carry purses in order to keep with them at all times their most intimate possessions, such as eyeglasses, keys, appointment calendars and makeup as well as money and pictures of loved ones. You name it. Purses hold it.

Purses are not to be taken lightly. They come in all sizes and shapes, depending on the requirements of their owners. Normally they dangle from a hand or shoulder, serving as virtually a permanent female appendage.

They are miniature suitcases. Most women would rather lose their soul than lose their purse.

Oddly, the two female justices split on the issue. Sandra Day O’Connor thought purses were no big deal while Ruth Bader Ginsburg disapproved of the majority’s strained language protecting a man’s pocket but not a woman’s pocketbook.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the majority opinion in Wyoming vs. Houghton, ruled that a closed container like a purse or briefcase belonging to a passenger in a car legally stopped because the driver was suspected of transporting drugs can be included in a general police search of the auto and its contents. In this case, the passenger, Sandra Houghton, was found to be carrying drugs and related paraphernalia in her purse.

Scalia sought to make this invasion of privacy palatable by making a distinction between possessions being worn and those being carried. He conceded that "even a limited search of outer clothing . . . constitutes a severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security and it must surely be an annoying, frightening and perhaps humiliating experience. . . . But such traumatic consequences are not to be expected when the police examine an item of personal property found in a car."

Justice Stephen Breyer, in a concurring opinion, was troubled by Scalia’s airy dismissal of a purse as just another receptacle for holding goods. "Purses are special containers," he noted. "I am tempted to say that a search of a purse involves an intrusion so similar to a search of one’s person that the same rule should govern both . . . "

But Breyer added that in past decisions the court had refused to legally treat purses differently from any other closed bag or box and he would stick to precedent.

He was also influenced by the fact the purse was found at a distance from its owner, rather than clutched in her hands. "It would matter if a woman’s purse, like a man’s billfold, were attached to her person. It might then amount to a kind of outer clothing," Breyer wrote.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the three-justice dissent, arguing that a warrantless search of a passenger’s purse or briefcase involved a serious intrusion of privacy that could not be justified without probable cause to suspect that the person owning it has committed a crime. The mere existence of a purse in a suspect’s car does not mean the cops should be free to rummage in it just for the fun of it.

The "Supremes" do not realize the mischief they are creating here. No self-respecting woman is likely to hand over the secrets of her purse to police snoops without a fight. We have not heard the last of this issue.

Copyright: 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Search Rule Said To Hurt Minorities

April 6, 1999
From The Tucson Citizen
letters@tucsoncitizen.com
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/

The supreme court decision to give more power to police during traffic stops could lead to abuses, two local attorneys say.

Local civil rights attorneys believe individuals - especially ethnic minorities - will suffer unfairly from a U.S. Supreme Court decision giving police more authority in searches during traffic stops.

The high court yesterday broadened police officers’ authority to search car passengers when the driver is suspected of wrongdoing.

"I’m very wary of giving anybody that much power," said Raul A. Miranda, a Tucson attorney specializing in civil rights issues.

"I don’t think police need that expanded power," local attorney Paul Gattone said. "They have enough power now."

Gattone, a civil rights activist with the Southern Arizona People’s Law Center and executive vice president with the National Lawyers Guild, fears more minorities will be harassed and targeted as a result of the ruling.

The 6-3 decision reinstated a Wyoming drug conviction and essentially expanded police power to stop and conduct vehicle searches without a court warrant.

"Police officers are more prone to stop persons of color while driving on the streets. We have what’s called ‘driving while black’ or ‘driving while brown,’" Gattone said.

But law officials here and around the nation are praising the decision.

"Officers must be free of unreasonable, confusing and unworkable restrictions on what may be searched," said Robert Scully of the National Association of Police Organizations.

Capt. Richard Kastigar, commander of the Pima County sheriff’s patrol division, said, "I applaud the Supreme Court of the United States for affording police officers tools to pursue charges against criminals."

Tucson City Prosecutor R. William Call agreed.

"From a prosecutorial standpoint, it’s a very good case," he said. "It does give police an additional tool ."

Call disagreed that the ruling would unfairly target minorities.

"It shouldn’t affect minorities more than whites," Call said, noting that officers seeing evidence of a crime will conduct searches regardless of race or ethnicity.

But Lisa Kemler of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called the decision "an abomination" against individuals’ rights.

"You get in a car and, as a passenger, you basically have no rights. Almost anything goes, as long as police can come up with some reason to say they expected to find evidence of a crime," she said.

And Miranda says minorities are certain to be affected.

"It does seem minorities are targeted more by police. I don’t think that’s right, but it is a fact of life," he said.

Miranda said he has often heard the police lingo of "pulled over for driving while Hispanic" as justification for stopping a vehicle.

Gattone said he was disappointed by the decision, but not shocked.

The Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable police searches and seizures. It generally requires police to obtain court warrants authorizing them to conduct searches.

But since 1925, the Supreme Court has carved out numerous exceptions allowing officers to conduct such searches when police targets are in vehicles.

In a key 1996 ruling, the justices said police can stop motorists for routine traffic violations - such as a faulty brake light - even if the officers really want to search for illegal drugs.

Yesterday’s ruling means officers who participate in such stops can search all containers in the car if something gives them reason to believe they will find drugs.

The court’s latest ruling on privacy rights stems from a routine traffic stop, a situation that arises countless times daily across the nation.

A car driven by David Young was stopped for speeding on Interstate 25 in Natrona County, Wyo., in the early hours of July 23, 1995.

After a Highway Patrol officer saw a hypodermic syringe in Young’s pocket, Young acknowledged that he had used it to take drugs.

During the ensuing search, two other officers asked the car’s two female passengers to get out of the car. One of them, Sandra Houghton, left her purse on the car’s back seat. Inside it, police found drug paraphernalia and liquid methamphetamine.

She was convicted on a felony charge but appealed.

The Wyoming Supreme Court threw out her conviction last year, ruling that police were justified only in searching the car for drugs Young may have had with him - and therefore could not search Houghton’s purse.

Writing for the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Wyoming court was wrong.

"Effective law enforcement would be appreciably impaired without the ability to search a passenger’s personal belongings when there is reason to believe contraband or evidence of criminal wrongdoing is hidden in the car," Scalia said.

"The sensible rule . . . is that such a package may be searched, whether or not its owner is present as a passenger or otherwise, because it may contain the contraband that the officer has reason to believe is in the car," Scalia said.

He added that car passengers "will often be engaged in a common enterprise with the driver and have the same interest in concealing the fruits or the evidence of their wrongdoing."

Joining Scalia in reinstating Houghton’s conviction were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer.

But, in dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the court had created "a new rule" that would let police search even a taxi passenger’s briefcase if they had reason to believe the driver had a syringe somewhere in his vehicle.

Joining him in dissent were Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.