Pubdate: Tue, 02 May 2000
Source: Detroit News (MI)
Copyright: 2000, The Detroit News
Contact:  http://data.detnews.com:8081/feedback/
Website: http://www.detnews.com/
Author: Laurie Asseo / Associated Press

SUPREME COURT TO RULE ON POLICE SEARCH-SEIZURE

WASHINGTON -- Taking on a police search and seizure case, the Supreme Court 
said Monday it will decide whether officers can keep people from going into 
their homes alone while police get a search warrant.

Illinois prosecutors say police needed to keep a man from destroying 
marijuana, but the man says officers violated the Constitution's Fourth 
Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

The justices will hear arguments in the case this fall, and a decision is 
expected next year.

"Police should not be able to detain you and keep you from re-entering your 
own home," attorney Deanne F. Jones, representing Charles McArthur of 
Sullivan, Ill., said in a telephone interview Monday.

However, assistant Illinois attorney general Colleen Griffin said, "There 
was probable cause to believe he had this contraband in his house." 
Therefore, she added, police were justified in saying that no one could 
re-enter the home for the period of time necessary to secure the warrant.

The dispute began in April 1997 when two Sullivan police officers 
accompanied Tera McArthur to retrieve her belongings from a trailer home 
she shared with McArthur, her husband. When she came outside, she told 
police he had marijuana under the couch.

An officer knocked on the door, and McArthur came outside, denied he had 
drugs and told police they could not search without a warrant. During the 
two hours it took to get a warrant, police did not let McArthur re-enter 
his home except for a few times when an officer accompanied him and stood 
inside the door.

When an officer returned with a warrant, police said they conducted a 
search and found marijuana and drug paraphernalia. McArthur was charged 
with possessing less than 2.5 grams of marijuana and possessing drug 
paraphernalia.

McArthur conceded that if he had been allowed to go inside his home alone 
he would have destroyed the marijuana. But he asked a state trial judge to 
bar use of the marijuana as evidence, contending the officer violated his 
Fourth Amendment rights. The trial judge ruled the drugs could not be used 
as evidence, and an Illinois appeals court agreed. The drug charge was a 
misdemeanor.

"At the heart of this issue is the preservation of evidence," the appeals 
court said.

However, the court said the officers essentially evicted McArthur from his 
home, adding that no special circumstances justified the officer's entering 
the trailer with McArthur.

The appellate judges said McArthur's case was not similar to others in 
which police were allowed to keep someone outside while seeking a warrant. 
In those cases, the person was under arrest or subject to arrest on 
arrival, or the person consented to stay outside, the court said.
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