Original Article High court weighs detention legalities Hope Yen Associated Press Nov. 9, 2004 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court sought Monday to clarify whether police can be sued for arresting suspects on charges that later fall apart, even if it turns out that officers had a second, valid reason for the detention. In the second week of oral arguments without ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the justices struggled to formulate a Fourth Amendment rule against arbitrary arrests that would curtail possible police abuse during traffic stops rather than encourage it. Rehnquist has been absent from the bench since Nov. 1, when he disclosed he was undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer. He still plans to rule on cases based on the written briefs and transcripts of the oral argument. The Devenpeck vs. Alford case involves the appeal of two Washington State Patrol officers who arrested Jerome Alford for tape-recording their conversation during a traffic stop in 1997. At the time, Alford told the officers he had case law showing the taping was legal, but police arrested him partly for separate reasons, which they did not tell him, that he appeared to be impersonating a police officer. Alford sued the two officers, claiming civil rights violations. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Alford in ruling the separate charges were not sufficiently "closely related" to the initial offense for which he was arrested to make the detention lawful. On Monday, several justices wondered whether such a holding made sense. They noted that the officers appeared to be acting in good faith when they diligently notified Alford he was being arrested.