Pubdate: Wed, 14 Apr 1999
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer (PA)
Copyright: 1999 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.phillynews.com/
Forum: http://interactive.phillynews.com/talk-show/

BUS SEARCHES RULED UNLAWFUL

The State Superior Court Ruled, 5-4, In A Case Involving Random Stops
At A Toll Bridge

Random police searches for drugs in buses at the Delaware Water Gap
Toll Plaza are unconstitutional, the state Superior Court has ruled.

In a 5-4 decision last week, the court said police have no right to
stop Greyhound buses randomly, question passengers, and check luggage
"in the absence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause that an
individual on the bus is transporting narcotics."

The court ruled that three kilograms of cocaine found in a shoe box
during a bus search could not be used as evidence against Marcus A.
Wilmington of Ohio, who had been sentenced to seven to 14 years in
state prison by Monroe County Court President Judge Ronald E. Vican.

In vacating Wilmington's conviction, the court said it was guided by
the state Supreme Court's admonition that the "seriousness of the
criminal activity under investigation . . . can never be used as
justification for ignoring or abandoning the constitutional rights of
every individual in the Commonwealth to be free from intrusions upon
his or her personal liberty absent probable cause."

Wilmington's lawyer, Robert Rosenblum of Stroudsburg, said he would
seek his client's release from prison.

At his trial, the prosecution said Wilmington was wearing sneakers at
the time of his arrest that matched the brand and size on the
unclaimed drug-filled shoe box found in the search of the bus he was
riding in on Dec. 11, 1996.

Prosecutor Mark Pazuhanich said he would appeal the appeals court
decision to the state Supreme Court.

The state's highest court has another bus-search case from the toll
bridge before it. The question of whether the searches violate the
state Constitution is being decided in the case of another Ohio man,
Belisario Polo, charged in 1995 with carrying more than 100 grams of
rock cocaine in his luggage on a Greyhound bus. He was sentenced to
seven to 15 years in prison.

The toll-bridge bus searches were halted in April 1997 after the
Superior Court found that the practice violated the constitutionally
protected privacy of all passengers "whose only crime is leaving the
driving to Greyhound."

Agents still use a similar tactic at bus terminals. The appeals courts
have not found those searches to be unconstitutional because they say
passengers can walk away from the agents if they do not want to answer
their questions.
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