ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 12, 1996 TAG: 9612120031
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Attorney General Janet Reno's debut as an advocate before the Supreme Court turned bumpy Wednesday as justices challenged her call for giving police greater authority to order passengers out of cars.
Reno's 10-minute argument repeatedly was interrupted by justices voicing doubt about the wisdom of allowing police officers to make everyone get out of a car stopped for a routine traffic violation.
The nation's top law enforcement official traditionally makes at least one appearance before the highest court. And it was thought that Reno, whose return for President Clinton's second term is uncertain, had followed the practice of picking one the government was sure to win.
But even the conservative court's most ardent law-and-order champions seemed troubled by the arguments Reno and Maryland Attorney General Joseph Curran offered.
Justice Antonin Scalia asked Reno whether a police officer who stops a speeding bus can order all passengers to get out while the driver is questioned.
``That might be a more difficult case,'' Reno replied, but Scalia snapped: ``Not for you. You want no reasonableness limitation.''
While Reno said she favored allowing ``a brief, temporary stop'' of car passengers, Justice Anthony Kennedy disagreed. ``It's a prolonged seizure,'' he said.
Reno contended that police officers ``are vulnerable to attack, not just from the driver but from the passenger. It's the person seated in the vehicle that creates the danger.''
Justice Stephen Breyer seemed to speak for most of his colleagues when he stated, ``The question is the risk of abuse.''
The court ruled in 1977 that motorists stopped for routine offenses can be ordered by police to get out of their cars.
But University of Baltimore law Professor Byron Warnken argued Wednesday against extending that ruling to passengers.
He represented Jerry Lee Wilson, a Florence, S.C., man arrested in 1994 after the car in which he was riding was stopped along Interstate 95 outside Baltimore. When ordered out of the car, Wilson dropped a packet of crack cocaine.
Maryland courts refused to let prosecutors use the cocaine as evidence against Wilson, ruling that police unlawfully ordered him out of the car.
The state courts ruled that the order violated Wilson's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
About half the states let police make such demands, but there are no statistical studies comparing police safety in those states with others.
``I resent being put in the position of deciding this case on speculation,'' Scalia said in referring to the absence of such a comparison.
A decision is expected by July.
Maryland's Curran, too, ran into a buzz saw of questions. In increasingly hostile tones, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor inquired how long passengers could be made to stand by while a driver's license and registration were checked.
She asked Curran about a young woman and her baby forced out of the car and into a driving rain or snowstorm, or a driver's confused and elderly parent who doesn't understand police orders and wanders away.
``If he doesn't understand, shoot him?'' she asked Curran sharply. ``This could be carried to extremes, and you don't seem to recognize that there's a difference.''
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB