BLOCK TO ROADBLOCKS

Efforts to curb the illegal drug trade are generally laudatory and
deserving of our support, but there have been instances of police excess
and overzealousness - crossing the line from worthy law-enforcement effort
to intolerable breach of our civil liberties. Randomly stopping motorists
at checkpoints and compelling them to submit to a search for illegal drugs
is a case study in such overzealousness that has been, thankfully, ruled
unlawful by the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, in a 6-3 decision in the case of Indianapolis vs. Edmond, the
justices ruled that police in the city of Indianapolis went beyond their
legal authority in erecting such checkpoints, where motorists suspected of
no crime had to endure a search by a dog sniffing for drugs. If the police
dog detected any trace of contraband, a more thorough search, by human
officers, came next.

Conservative justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice
William Rehnquist dissented from the majority opinion - taking the position
that the searches did not constitute an "undue burden" on motorists and
fell within the legitimate prerogative of the interests of the state.
"These stops effectively serve the state's legitimate interests," Justice
Rehnquist wrote. "They are executed in a regularized and neutral manner.
And they only minimally intrude upon the privacy of motorists. They should
therefore be constitutional," he added, drawing a parallel between the
stops at issue and sobriety checkpoints - which have been consistently
found lawful on the basis of "compelling state interest."

But there is a distinction - and it is an important one - between checking
for drunk drivers and subjecting stone-cold sober motorists to a criminal
investigation in the absence of any reasonable probable cause. Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor grasped the essential difference, writing, "We have
never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect
evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing. Rather, our checkpoint cases have
recognized only limited exceptions to the general rule that a seizure must
be accompanied by some measure of individualized suspicion."

The problem with the drug searches at issue in the case before the Supreme
Court this week was precisely that they were based on a blanket assumption
of criminal intent/activity prior to there being any evidence of such - and
that the issue of illegal contraband has little, if any, connection to
highway safety.

If the practices of the city of Indianapolis had been allowed to stand,
wrote Justice O'Connor, "there would be little check on the authorities'
ability to construct roadblocks for almost any conceivable law enforcement
purpose." Absent limits, the existence of Fourth Amendment guarantees
against "unreasonable searches and seizures" would become effectively
meaningless.

The Supreme Court's decision may make life a little harder for police - and
even a little easier for drug peddlers. But these costs are well worth the
sanctity of our constitutionally guaranteed liberties.