DRUG CHECKPOINTS

It's Good The High Court Has Taken Notice Of The Fourth Amendment By
Disallowing Suspicionless Roadside Checkpoints For Drug Searches

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the use of roadside
drug checkpoints was reassuring to those of us who have been wondering
whether the court still recognizes the Fourth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution.

Our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures has been on
life support for a couple of decades, as the court has slowly retrenched on
the rights of Americans to be let alone by government. But in a strong
6-to-3 ruling last month, the justices stated unequivocally that police
stops for the primary function of crime control must be justified by
individual suspicion of wrongdoing. In other words: Without some objective
evidence that a driver is engaging in illegal activity, he or she can't be
pulled over to be searched for drugs.

The case arose after the city of Indianapolis established a narcotics
roadblock for four months in 1998. Every driver stopped was subjected to a
license and registration check and had a drug sniffing dog walked around
the car. In all 1,161 vehicles were stopped, resulting in the arrest of 55
motorists for drug-related crimes.

The city defended its program by saying the trade in illicit drugs causes
serious social harms, thereby casting the roadblock as a public safety
measure, such as a sobriety checkpoint. A decade ago, the high court
approved sobriety checkpoints as an exception to the requirement of
individual suspicion, citing the immediate public safety threat of drunk
drivers.

But the majority opinion in the Indianapolis case, authored by Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, drew a sharp distinction between the two. "The
detection and punishment of almost any criminal offense serves broadly the
safety of the community," O'Connor wrote, "and our streets would no doubt
be safer but for the scourge of illegal drugs. Only with respect to a
smaller class of offenses, however, is society confronted with the type of
immediate, vehicle-bound threat to life and limb that the sobriety
checkpoint . . . was designed to eliminate."

What is most surprising about this case is not that the court ruled against
suspicionless checkpoints, but that the Fourth Amendment was perceived as
so shriveled that a narcotics checkpoint was tried. It should be
self-evident that dragnets are inimical to the Constitution. But,
unfortunately, the court has gone out of its way in recent years to approve
suspicionless searches, such as mandatory drug tests for student athletes
and fixed checkpoints to search for illegal aliens. It was inevitable that
some city police forces would start to view the Fourth Amendment as
superfluous.

The court's ruling also affects Florida, because our federal appeals court
had earlier approved drug checkpoints.

The Fourth Amendment's protections were purposely drawn by the Founders to
keep police from invading a citizen's private spheres unless there is cause
to do so. It's good to see the court taking notice again.