Pubdate: Tue, 16 Dec 2003
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Section: Page A03
Copyright: 2003 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Charles Lane

JUSTICES' RULING SETS BROAD 'PROBABLE CAUSE' STANDARD IN DRUG ARRESTS

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Baltimore County police acted 
properly four years ago when they arrested all three occupants of a car 
after the officers discovered drugs and cash inside and everyone denied 
owning them.

By a vote of 9 to 0, the court said that such an arrest was consistent with 
the constitutional requirement that arrests be based on "probable cause," 
because under the circumstances it was reasonable to assume that one, some 
or all of the people in the car were involved in illegal activity.

The decision reversed the judgment of Maryland's highest court, which last 
year overturned the conviction of the one occupant of the car who was 
eventually tried in the case, Joseph Jermaine Pringle. The Maryland court 
ruled that his arrest was unconstitutional because the police had lacked a 
reason to think he was individually involved in a crime.

"We think it an entirely reasonable inference from these facts that any or 
all three of the occupants had knowledge of, and exercised dominion and 
control over, the cocaine," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for 
the court. "Thus a reasonable officer could conclude that there was 
probable cause to believe Pringle committed the crime of possession of 
cocaine, either solely or jointly."

The case called on the court to apply the concept of probable cause to a 
situation in which the police were bound to err in one of two ways: either 
by sweeping up several innocent people in pursuit of one guilty party or by 
letting a guilty individual go free for fear of infringing the rights of 
his companions.

Yesterday's decision means that, in such cases involving drugs, officers 
may now err on the side of arresting the innocent without violating the 
Constitution.

"With this decision, the court has reaffirmed the necessary flexibility of 
the probable cause standard, which allows police to deal appropriately with 
the varying circumstances associated with encounters with criminals on the 
street," said Charles Hobson, an attorney with the Criminal Justice Legal 
Foundation, a Sacramento-based nonprofit that filed a friend-of-the-court 
brief urging the justices to uphold Pringle's arrest.

But Tracy Maclin, a professor of law at Boston University who wrote a 
friend-of-the-court brief on Pringle's behalf, said the court had written a 
sweeping opinion that could expose innocent people to arrest in a wide 
variety of situations.

"It's going to be easier to arrest people, and there is . . . nothing in 
this opinion to cabin this rationale," Maclin said. "If someone has 20 
friends over, and a cop comes to the house and finds contraband under the 
couch pillow, what's to prevent the police from arresting everyone in the 
house?"

The case, Maryland v. Pringle, No. 02-809, began at 3:16 a.m. on Aug. 7, 
1999, when a Baltimore County police officer stopped a Nissan Maxima for 
speeding and, upon searching the vehicle, found $763 in cash wadded up in 
the glove compartment and five small plastic bags containing crack cocaine 
stuffed behind a back-seat armrest.

The officer, Jeffrey Snyder, told the driver and two passengers that if 
none of them confessed to ownership of the drugs, he would arrest all 
three. They kept silent, and he made good on his threat.

The front-seat passenger, Pringle, eventually admitted that the contraband 
was his and was convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to 
distribute; he is serving a 10-year sentence. The other two men were 
quickly released.

But last year, the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, 
reversed Pringle's conviction, ruling 4 to 3 that "a policy of arresting 
everyone until somebody confesses is constitutionally unacceptable."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman