High court rules for police search power

WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday broadly and unanimously reinforced police search power, brushing aside a state court and a state law.

The justices ruled in a Virginia case that the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, is not violated when an arrest is not authorized by state law or when there is a search following from the arrest, as long as there is "probable cause" for both.

Police stopped David Lee Moore of Portsmouth, Va., in 2003 on a charge of driving with a suspended license. State law required the officers to give him a ticket but did not allow an arrest based solely on a misdemeanor traffic violation.

However, police placed him in custody, searched him and found crack cocaine. The Virginia Supreme Court overturned his drug conviction, saying the cocaine should not have been admitted because state law did not permit an arrest and the Fourth Amendment did not permit a search following a traffic citation.

In an opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by seven other justices and concurred in by a separate opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the U.S. Supreme Court said neither the arrest nor the search violated the Fourth Amendment.

States are free to impose stricter search-and-seizure rules than the U.S. Constitution, the high court said, but the "Fourth Amendment should reflect administrable bright-line rules" regardless of state laws.

(No. 06-1082 Virginia vs. Moore)