Fourth Amendment

Dist. Atty. (Michael R.) Capizzi's response to those who favor legalization of illicit substances ("Legal Drugs No Answer, Says Capizzi," July 27) is so full of emotional rhetoric, I'm still searching for substance. It's also chilling. Capizzi complains that delays in the legal system come from such things as the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Miranda rule, which gives suspects the right to legal counsel. "There are so many roadblocks in the system," he says.

A San Diego lawyer has successfully made a federal case out of being forced to take off his shoes and walk in his stocking feet into a U.S. courthouse. A federal appeals court ruled Monday that S. Myron Klarfeld may continue his suit alleging that federal marshals violated his constitutional rights by requiring him to remove his shoes to get through the metal detectors at the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. The U.S.

Police may not use physical force to draw blood from a drunk-driving suspect under a ruling in a Newport Beach case that the U. S. Supreme Court let stand Monday. Under California law, police can insist that apparently intoxicated motorists submit to a test--whether of their breath, urine or blood--as a condition of maintaining their driving licenses. But the U. S.

The Supreme Court seems to take away another civil right with each new decision. Pillsbury is correct; Florida bus sweeps do not fit our vision of a constitutional America. Next Dec. 15, Bill of Rights Day, is the 200th anniversary of the execution of these ageless Fourth Amendment words: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath/affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched.

On one of those newly released Nixon tapes, which give one the feeling of gazing up a rat's nostril, we find the President fretting that government officials were insufficiently zealous in combatting security leaks. Nixon: "You remember the meeting we had here when I told that group of clowns that we had around here, Renchler and that group? What was his name?" Aide: "Rehnquist." Nixon: "Oh, Rehnquist." That exchange occurred on July 24, 1971.

In its latest ruling broadening the powers of police, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the mass search of passengers and their belongings on buses and trains, as long as officers receive a traveler's consent before inspecting his bags. Officers cannot threaten anyone into cooperating, the court said. On a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled constitutional a relatively new and, some say, ominous tactic in the war on drugs.

The Supreme Court, acting in an Orange County drug case, ruled Thursday that police officers who suspect drugs are being hidden may search a car and any closed container inside it without a warrant. The 6-3 ruling overturns decisions requiring police to get a search warrant to open and examine a bag, a locked container or a piece of luggage.

The Supreme Court gave police more leeway Tuesday to chase suspects on the street, even when they lack evidence that a crime has been committed. A fleeing suspect is not entitled to 4th Amendment protection against unjustified search and seizure until he is physically in custody, the court said in a 7-2 ruling, and any evidence that he discards during the chase can be used against him in court.

It sounded as clean and sweet to Phillip Long's ears as the fine-tuned thrum of a four-stroke Harley. In stately phrases that paid off for all those late nights and lost weekends, when the 10th-grade-dropout motorcycle mechanic labored over law books as big as a dirt-bike's engine casing, a U.S.

A California law allowing police to hunt for stolen vehicles without a warrant in automobile- and motorcycle-related businesses violates the Constitution's 4th Amendment, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson said the law was "a blank check to the police to conduct at their whim criminal investigations upon the premises of every business establishment . . . (that) happens to shelter automobiles on its premises."