Vehicle checkpoints

Definition: Stoppages of motorists by police for such purposes as apprehending criminals, preventing criminal behavior, and obtaining information

Significance: Vehicle checkpoints have been proven to be effective tools in law enforcement, but their use has raised constitutional challenges that have won court decisions that limit their use.

One of the most publicly visible and useful tools in law enforcement is the use of vehicle checkpoints, in which police officers stop traffic passing through certain locations in order to question drivers and passengers and to perform quick visual inspections of vehicles. The specific purposes of individual checkpoints vary. Some are set up to apprehend criminal fugitives in emergencies, and others are set up on holidays to check for drunk drivers and to discourage drunken driving by their mere presence. Vehicle checkpoints take at least five different forms:

•general crime control checkpoints

•border patrol checkpoints

•driver’s license checkpoints

•sobriety checkpoints

•informational checkpoints.

Despite their frequent usefulness in deterring crime and apprehending criminals, the use of vehicle checkpoints has raised legal challenges because of their perceived infringement on civil liberties in the United States. For example, general crime control checkpoints, including those set up to search for illegal drugs, have been ruled constitutionally unreasonable in several landmark decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. On the other hand, the Supreme Court has upheld them as legal, under certain circumstances, in a number of cases. For any type of vehicle checkpoint to be considered reasonable and constitutional, there is a fine balancing act between the public interest the stop serves and the right of individuals to be free from governmental interference.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives citizens the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The individuals in some Supreme Court cases claimed that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated when they were stopped at vehicle checkpoints. Although the amendment has been interpreted to permit informational vehicle checkpoints, the crimes about which information is sought must be serious. Under court rulings, such checkpoints must be narrowly tailored to the investigative purpose. Moreover, all checkpoint stops must be brief and systematic. Arbitrary stops are unconstitutional.

Informational Checkpoints

Informational checkpoints are used by police to ask motorists if they have information about recent crimes and other matters. They can be useful tools, especially when they succeed in finding witnesses to crimes who might otherwise not come forward. In 2003, the Supreme Court heard the case of Illinois v. Lidster, which challenged the constitutionality of vehicle checkpoints for informational purposes. A bicyclist had been struck and killed by a vehicle at approximately the same time of day as the checkpoint was being conducted. Police were stopping individual vehicles for only about ten to fifteen seconds each, in order to hand drivers flyers to ascertain if they had been witnesses to the fatal hit-and-run. The officers did not ask motorists for their names or any other information. The police roadblock was set up purely for informational purposes.

When a motorist named Robert Lidster approached the vehicle checkpoint, a police detective smelled alcohol on his breath and noticed that Lidster’s speech was slurred. He asked Lidster for his driver’s license and insurance card and directed him to a side street, where another officer performed a sobriety test. After Lidster failed the test, he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol. Later, Lidster argued that the checkpoint was unconstitutional because he was seized without suspicion. Lidster said that his Fourth Amendment rights were being violated, and he motioned to suppress the evidence of his offense.

In the trial that followed, Lidster was found guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol, despite his argument that he successfully completed all of the roadside sobriety tests. Afterward, he appealed his conviction, arguing that the hindrance to drivers that the checkpoint created outweighed its possible usefulness in obtaining information. An Illinois appellate court agreed and reversed the trial court’s decision, but the case later reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the trial court’s original ruling.

Other Checkpoint Cases

Another U.S. ruling bearing on vehicle checkpoints, Brown v. Texas (1979), originated in a Texas case in which police officers stopped two men in a neighborhood with a high incidence of drug traffic merely because they looked suspicious. One man refused to identify himself and was arrested. The Supreme Court ruled that this violated the man’s Fourth Amendment rights. The Court’s decision ruled that a Texas statute requiring individuals to identify themselves to police violated the Fourth Amendment because it could be applied when officers lacked any reasonable suspicion to believe that suspects were engaged in criminal conduct.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Indianapolis v. Edmond (2000) involved a vehicle checkpoint system that had been established by the city of Indianapolis in 1998 to intercept unlawful drugs. Secondary purposes of the system were to keep impaired drivers off the road and to verify motorists’ license and registration information. Police stopped selected vehicles at a checkpoint and spent less than five minutes per vehicle searching for signs of driver impairment, conducting open-view examinations of the vehicles, and leading a drug-sniffing dog around the vehicles.

Later, two motorists, James Edmond and Joell Palmer, filed a class-action suit in a federal district court, claiming that the vehicle stop violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment and Indiana’s own constitution. When their case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court ruled that a checkpoint program was unconstitutional if its only purpose was to uncover “ordinary criminal wrongdoing.”

Bibliography

Hall, John Wesley. Search and Seizure. 3d ed. Charlottesville, Va.: LEXIS Law Publishing, 2000. Textbook focusing on issues surrounding search and seizure, including vehicle checkpoints.

LaFave, W. R. Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment. 3d ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1995. Comprehensive overview of search and seizure with special attention to the constitutional issues that the subject raises.

McWhirter, Darien A. Search, Seizure, and Privacy. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1994. Book written to make subjects such as search and seizure, the exclusionary rule, and privacy rights interesting for high school and undergraduate college students.

Miller, Marc L., and Ronald F. Wright. Criminal Procedures: The Police: Cases, Statutes, and Executive Materials. New York: Aspen Law & Business Publishers, 1998. Discussion of both police-citizen interactions and appeals processes in the U.S. justice system.

Wetterer, Charles M. The Fourth Amendment: Search and Seizure. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow, 1998. Discussion of various aspects of search and seizure law and how the courts have interpreted the Fourth Amendment.