High Court To Hear Search and Seizure Case

Jan. 8, 2001 -- Meeting for the first time since its decisive ruling on the presidential election, the Supreme Court justices decided to take on a case that may affect search and seizure laws but passed on getting involved in the census sampling debate and rejected an appeal in the Whitewater scandal.

Unwarranted Search and Seizure? No High Sampling The Harassment Cap Whitewater Conspiracy: Case Closed

Unwarranted Search and Seizure

The Supreme Court agreed today to clarifywhether police can always search a car without a warrant making an arrest.

The court said it will hear Florida prosecutors’ appeal of astate court ruling that said police cannot automatically conductsuch a search if the person got out of the car before the initialcontact with police.

In 1997, Robert A. Thomas was arrested after he drove up to a house wherepolice were making arrests for narcotics offenses. Thomas got outof his car and walked toward the rear of the car, where an officermet him and asked to see his driver’s license.

A license check showed an arrest warrant for a probationviolation. The officer arrested Thomas, and a search of his carshortly afterward found plastic bags containing a substance thatpolice said tested positive as methamphetamine.

A state trial judge granted Thomas’ request to bar the use ofthe evidence. A state appeals court disagreed, saying the searchwas lawful because it followed Thomas’ arrest.

The nation’s highest court ruled in 1981 that when a policeofficer has arrested the occupant of a vehicle, the officer cansearch the car’s passenger compartment.

But the Florida Supreme Court ruled that because Thomas hadgotten out of the car before he had any contact with police, theofficers could not automatically search his car after arrestinghim. Instead, the court said police must show the search wasnecessary to protect officers’ safety or to preserve evidence.

The case is Florida vs. Thomas, 00-391.

No High Sampling

The Supreme Court today refused to bedrawn into a growing national fight over sampling in redrawing state political districts.

Acting in a case from Virginia, the justices affirmed athree-judge federal court ruling the state had actedprematurely in seeking to avoid getting federal approval for itsstatute barring the use of sampled Census Bureau data.

Arizona also has a law barring the use of sampled data inredrawing legislative and congressional districts. Arizona andVirginia are among 16 states which are required to get federalapproval of election-law changes because of past civil rightsviolations.

The statistical method known as “sampling,” intended to makeup for an expected undercount of minority voters, is in addition tothe traditional head count conducted every decade.

The Supreme Court previously barred the use of such sampling toparcel out congressional seats among the states. The 435 Houseseats are redistributed according to state population after eachdecennial Census.

Virginia’s Republican-controlled Legislature voted last year toprevent the use of sampling in redistricting.

The state then sued the federal government in an attempt toavoid getting Justice Department approval of the state law. Thestate argued, among other things, that it needed to move quicklybecause the first round of redistricting is due before this fall’soff-year elections for the state Legislature.

A three-judge panel of the federal District Court threw out thecase in October, but did allow Virginia localities more time, ifneeded, to redraw political boundaries.

The state appealed, asking the Supreme Court to consider thecase, or to order the lower court to reconsider.

The bureau released the first, raw totals from the 2000 Censuslast month. The figures show more than 281 million people living inAmerica on April 1, 2000, and set in motion the shift of 12congressional seats to states with the fastest growth.

The case is Virginia vs. Reno, 00-862.

The Harassment Cap

The Supreme Court agreed today to decidewhether victims of on-the-job harassment can win upfront damagesthat are higher than a cap set by Congress.

The court said it will review the sexual harassment case of aMemphis, Tenn., chemical plant worker whose male co-workersallegedly sabotaged her performance, called her barnyard names andrefused to talk to her after she was chosen to address a group ofgirls visiting the plant for “Take Your Daughters to Work Day” in1994.

Two lower courts found the treatment of Sharon Pollard wasdiscriminatory and ordered her former employer, the DuPont chemicalcompany, to pay a variety of damages. DuPont has fought the damageawards.

At issue for the Supreme Court is whether Pollard can collectmore than $300,000 in “front pay,” or money she presumably wouldhave earned had she been able to go on working at the plant. Oneeconomist estimated at trial that she was really due about $800,000in front pay and benefits.

The Cincinnati-based 6th federal appeals court ruledthat front pay amounts to compensatory damages in this case, and issubject to a $300,000 cap set by Congress as part of 1991amendments to the Civil Rights Act.

The Supreme Court ruling, expected by summer, could affect anyemployee who wins a harassment or discrimination case in which thepotential for front pay is more than $300,000.

The case is Pollard vs. DuPont, 00-763.

Whitewater Conspiracy: Case Closed

The high court also refused to reinstate the lawsuit of a man who claims the FBI and others conspired to intimidate him over his testimony about the 1993 deathof White House lawyer Vince Foster.

The court, without comment, refused to revive Patrick JamesKnowlton’s lawsuit against two FBI agents and more than two dozen otherpeople, many of them unidentified.

Knowlton had stopped briefly at a park in suburban Virginia onJuly 20, 1993, shortly before Foster was found there with a gunshotwound to the head. Knowlton apparently did not see Foster’s body,but he later told an FBI agent that a car he saw at the park didnot look like a photo he was shown of Foster’s car.

Four investigations — including one by Whitewater IndependentCounsel Kenneth Starr — concluded that Foster committed suicide,but some people have speculated that Foster may have been murdered.

In 1995, Knowlton was quoted in a news report as saying the FBIhad falsified his report about the car. Later he was called totestify before a federal grand jury.

During the days before his testimony, Knowlton contended thatmore than 20 people approached him on public streets and sidewalksand “glared” at him. He complained to the FBI and later said theagent who came to his home disabled his phone so he could not callhis lawyer.

Knowlton sued in 1996, saying two FBI agents and 26 other peopleconspired in a “campaign of harassment, intimidation, terror and psychological attack” to keep him from testifying fully.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in September 1999, sayingthe FBI agent who questioned Knowlton about the car accuratelyreported that Knowlton believed the car was not the same asFoster’s car. The judge also said Knowlton did not show there wasany agreement to interfere with his testimony or that the 26 otherpeople even knew each other.

A federal appeals court upheld the ruling last June.

The cases are Knowlton vs. Bransford, 00-718, and In Re PatrickJames Knowlton, 00-719. The Associated Press contributed to this report.