Legalities of police checkpoints

The other day, my cat and a co-worker of mine, Frank, were involved in casual conversation regarding personal rights and police checkpoints. They were discussing the legalities of DUI and other checkpoints.  My cat loves a bit of brandy with his catnip – so he has some skin in the game.  Last thing he needs is getting pulled over  on his way to the litter box.  Frank has no stance on drinking – his stance is purely a personal rights / constitutional law question.  I believe the law is applicable to all type scenarios, and the legal precedences are valid.

The question is, are DUI checkpoints legal.  In a word – yes.  While it is true that the Fourth Amendment secures “the right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and affects against unreasonable searches and seizures” the Supreme Court has established precedence that DUI checkpoints are, in fact, legal.  The case setting this precedence was the 1990 Supreme Court case: Michigan Dept of State Police vs. Sitz. The State of Michigan was “balancing the state’s interest  in preventing accidents caused by drunk drivers, the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints in achieving that goal, and the level of intrusion on an individual’s privacy caused by the checkpoints.”

In staying with the Supreme Courts decision, a “seizure” occurs when a vehicle is stopped at a checkpoint.  The question comes into play, is that seizure reasonable?  Because every vehicle is stopped, and checkpoints have common guidelines; the resulting intrusion is “constitutionally indistinguishable” from the stops upheld in Marinez-Fuerte, which decided the legality of permanent checkpoints looking for illegal aliens.  In this case the Supreme Court stated “Under the circumstances of these checkpoint stops, which do not involve searches, the Government or public interest in making such stops outweighs the constitutionally protected interest of the private citizen.”

It’s that pesky little word “unreasonable” that creates the trouble.  What is reasonable to one, may not be reasonable to another – and that, I think was the jist of Frank’s comments. Constitutional scholars (of which I am not one) fall into two camps regarding this word…

• Some argue that the word “unreasonable” indicates an independent prohibition on the actions of government officials.  Representative Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts believed there was a mistake in this clause, it ought to be the “right of the people to be secure…”  So in this train of thought, the searches and seizures clause can be considered an individual’s right and protects them against acts of governmental agents.
• Others argue that the search and seizure clause is a statement of moral principle to explain the warrant clause of the fourth amendment. These folks argue that the right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and affects is a right of the people, meaning those comprising the political community, rather than an individual right.

The Fourth Amendment also contains the “warrant clause.”  The Warrant clause sets forth the requirement for search warrants as:

1. Probable cause must be present.  A problem though: what constitutes probable cause?
2. The official seeking the warrant must swear that the information provided to obtain the warrant is true.
3. The warrant must specify where the search will be conducted.
4. The warrant must state what officials are looking for in their search.

Since the warrant clause is pretty clear, with the exception of what constitutes probable cause and are warrants ever required for officers to search a location or arrest an individual, most legal confrontations revolve around the more obscure search and seizure clause.  The warrant clause specifies what is required for a warrant; but not when they are required.

And this is the rub.  There are roughly six major categories of exemptions from the warrants requirement.

• First, police are usually exempt from getting a warrant if circumstance can be classified as exigent (that is, if obtaining a warrant in a timely manner would be impossible). For example, an officer may enter a home without a warrant if he hears a scream and a gunshot.
• Second, police do not need a warrant to arrest people if they are outside their home. However, police must have probable cause to make such an arrest.
• Third, police may conduct searches directly related to the arrest of an individual.
• Fourth, police can legally seize items that an arrestee possesses without first obtaining a warrant.
• Fifth, police officers do not need a warrant to search any part of a vehicle, including the trunk, but they do need to be able to establish that they had probable cause for doing so.
• Sixth, police officers can detain and frisk individuals to find weapons, but officers must have reasonable suspicion that the individual is engaged in criminal activity

So we have established that the police can stop you at a DUI checkpoint.  But beyond the checkpoint scenario; there are many possible reasons for interaction with the police.  One doesn’t need to be scared if you haven’t done anything wrong.  Chris Rock has a funny video that actually makes some good sense. In short, don’t do anything to piss off the police.  For more information on what your rights are, and aren’t when interacting with the Police.

A great interactive guide to the Constitution: http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/.  Frank’s stance is that a person is free at birth.  Why does a person need the government’s permission to do things.  This might be a topic for another day.