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From: MikePiet@aol.com
Subject: SNET: [piml] ..Warrant - we don't need no stinkin Warrant
Date: 17 May 1999 13:14:28 -0400
To: piml@egroups.com, FPE@onelist.com


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U.S. Top Court Allows Police Car Search, Seizure
12.44 p.m. ET (1645 GMT) May 17, 1999
WASHINGTON  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that police do not need a 
search warrant before seizing a vehicle from a public place if they have 
grounds to believe it is contraband covered by state forfeiture law. 

The high court, by a 7-2 vote, said the constitutional guarantee against 
unreasonable searches and seizures does not require a warrant if police have 
sufficient reason to believe the vehicle itself is contraband under Florida 
law. 

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the seven-page opinion that the Supreme 
Court has consistently given police officers greater latitude in exercising 
their duties in public places. 

The conservative-controlled high court in recent years has generally sided 
with the police in giving them greater powers to seize and search for 
evidence of possible wrongdoing, curtailing the rights of criminal suspects. 

The ruling was a victory for the state of Florida and for the Clinton 
administration, which said the seizure of property was allowed without a 
warrant as long as it involved no intrusion on privacy rights. 

The justices said the Florida Supreme Court was wrong in throwing out 
Tyvessel White's drug conviction, based on two pieces of crack cocaine the 
police found in the ashtray of his seized car. 

White was arrested in 1993 at his workplace on charges of selling a 
controlled substance. After he was taken into custody and the police obtained 
the keys to his car, the arresting officers seized his automobile from the 
parking lot. 

The basis for the seizure was the belief by the police, based on eyewitnesses 
and videotapes, that the car had been used in the delivery and sale of 
cocaine on three occasions. The car was taken under state forfeiture law. 

Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented. Stevens said 
Florida failed to offer any reason for the failure to obtain a warrant before 
or after White's arrest. 

"On this record, one must assume that the officers who seized White's car 
simply preferred to avoid the hassle of seeking approval from a judicial 
officer,'' Stevens said. 

"I would not permit bare inconvenience to overcome our established preference 
for the warrant process as a check against arbitrary intrusions by law 
enforcement agencies,'' he said. 

 
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