Police May Search Baggage in Cars, High Court Decides

WASHINGTON — Police allowed to search cars also may open closed containers in the passenger compartments, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

By a 7-2 vote, the justices said that when police are allowed by an owner to search a car the officers generally do not need separate permission or a court warrant to search luggage or other containers inside the car.

The court overturned a Florida Supreme Court ruling that said separate authorization is required before police may open a container found in the car’s interior other than the trunk.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing for the court, said the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable police searches does not shield closed containers inside cars.

Justices Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens dissented.

In a 1982 decision, the court ruled that police can search even closed containers in a car’s trunk any time an officer has “reasonable cause” to believe that the car contains drugs, weapons or other contraband.

The court on Thursday essentially extended the nine-year-old decision to consensual searches conducted in passenger compartments.

The ruling allows prosecutors to introduce as trial evidence the cocaine found by a Miami police officer in a car owned by Enio Jimeno in 1989. (Florida vs. Jimeno, 90-622).

In another ruling, the high court blunted the federal government’s primary weapon to fight local political corruption, making it more difficult to prosecute officials accused of extorting payoffs.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices overturned the extortion and tax evasion convictions of Robert L. McCormick, a former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates.

The court said the jury may have convicted him without believing that the money--claimed by McCormick to be a campaign contribution--was given directly in return for official favors.

For extortion to have occurred when a candidate accepts a campaign donation, Justice Byron R. White wrote for the court, there must be a quid pro quo--a promise of an official favor in return for the money.

White said the jury may have been misled into believing that McCormick was guilty even if it accepted his claim that the money was a campaign contribution. (McCormick vs. U.S., 89-1918).

The ruling is a setback for the Bush Administration and federal law enforcement officials who urged that McCormick’s conviction be upheld. He had been fined $50,000 and given a three-year suspended prison sentence. He could be retried.