Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 18, 1990 TAG: 9004180591
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
By a 7-2 vote, the court said police unlawfully arrested the man when they arrested him without a warrant in a home where he was staying.
"To hold that an overnight guest has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his host's home merely recognizes the everyday expectations of privacy that we all share," Justice Byron White wrote for the court.
White, who most often sides with law enforcement agents in law-and-order cases, said, "Staying overnight in another's home is a longstanding social custom that serves functions recognized as valuable by society."
Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Harry Blackmun dissented.
Robert Olson was convicted of murder, armed robbery and assault in the July 18, 1987, holdup of a gas station in Minneapolis in which the station manager was shot to death. Olson was sentenced to life in prison plus six years.
He said he had been duped into driving the getaway car for the crime.
The Minnesota Supreme Court had overturned Olson's conviction and granted him a new trial. Today's decision upheld the state court ruling.
Police, acting on an informant's tip, went to a home where they believed Olson was staying with the two women who lived there. After surrounding the home, police telephoned and asked to speak to Olson. A male voice was heard to say, "Tell them I left."
Police officers then rushed into the home, found Olson hiding in a closet and arrested him. Olson made an incriminating remark to police that was used against him at his trial.
Today's decision means Olson must be retried, and that the incriminating remark - the result of an unlawful arrest - cannot be used as evidence.
"The issue is whether the arrest violated Olson's Fourth Amendment rights. We hold that it did," White wrote.
The Fourth Amendment bans unreasonable police searches and arrests.
In another case, the court ruled that a federal judge may not personally raise property taxes to pay for school desegregation but can order school officials to do so.
By a 9-0 vote, it said U.S. District Judge Russell Clark abused his discretion when he personally imposed a school district tax increase in Kansas City, Mo.
But in a victory for civil rights forces, the court upheld most of the steps Clark ordered school officials to take to racially desegregate the schools.
In a 5-4 vote, the court said the judge could order officials to raise taxes to pay for the ordered desegregation remedies and could instruct them to ignore state laws limiting the amount of school taxes.
by CNB