SEARCH BAN WON'T AFFECT CHP

High Court Rules Specifically Against Drug Checkpoints Not Used In Northern
California

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling forbidding checkpoints to search cars for drugs
isn't expected to affect the use of routine traffic stops to initiate drug
searches on North Coast highways.

CHP officials and defense attorneys alike say there are distinctions
between the police checkpoints rejected in Indianapolis and tactics used in
Northern California.

CHP Commissioner Dwight Helmick endorsed the high court ruling but said his
7,000 officers always look out for illegal drugs while enforcing traffic laws.

Helmick said the Indianapolis approach amounted to stopping people and
"guessing they may or may not have" drugs in the car.

"I have a policy against it and I have a personal thing against it," he said.

But critics argue that's exactly what the CHP does, and a state appellate
court threw out two 1996 convictions for transporting marijuana, saying
officers overstepped their bounds when searching a car following a traffic
stop near Laytonville.

"It becomes pretty clear to people that they're sort of running a gauntlet
every time they get in the car," Eureka defense attorney Manny Daskal said.

The CHP announced programs with names such as Operation Harvest Season and
Operation North Coast in the mid-1990s, stepping up traffic enforcement
during the fall marijuana harvesting season. There were 125 arrests and $1
million worth of marijuana was seized in 1996 alone, the CHP said.

Helmick insists the drug arrests were secondary to enforcing traffic laws.

Although the CHP has lowered its profile since it came under fire in the
1st District Court of Appeal, Bonnie Blackberry of the Redway-based Civil
Liberties Monitoring Project says there is still a focus on searching cars
for drugs though "they'll tell you that they never stop anybody for that."

But attorneys say the Indianapolis case isn't likely to have any broad
impact on traffic stops conducted along the North Coast.

One key difference is that Indianapolis police set up roadblocks, much like
the ones used to find drunken drivers, a practice upheld by the high court.
The CHP has made drug searches part of traffic enforcement, combining it
with writing citations for violations such as speeding or driving with a
broken taillight.

It is difficult to prove that the CHP traffic stops are part of a defined
program to root out drugs, said Arcata attorney Mark Harris.

Indeed, while the CHP has been candid in the past about timing special
enforcement operations to coincide with the marijuana harvest, Helmick
denied that the CHP ever embarks on a program specifically geared toward
drug interdiction.

"I do not want our people simply stopping on a witch hunt, if you will," he
said.

In the Indianapolis case, the justices ruled that formal checkpoints
violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and
seizure because motorists were being stopped "in the absence of
individualized suspicion of wrongdoing."

While reiterating exceptions for DUI and border patrol checkpoints based on
"special needs," the court said the aim of detecting "evidence of ordinary
criminal wrongdoing" was not sufficient to justify forcing drivers to the
side of the road.

"We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and
ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that
any given motorist has committed some crime," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
wrote in the 6-3 decision.

In a 1996 opinion, the court said an officer could stop a vehicle for a
minor traffic violation even if the real purpose was looking for drugs.
North Coast attorneys say such "pretext stops" are the heart and soul of
CHP operations.

"They don't seem to be doing it in teams now, like they used to," said
Daskal, "but we're certainly seeing some more aggressive CHP officers up
here, where they're stopping people for any minor infraction and getting in
the car."

The combined court rulings, said Harris, suggest "the primary purpose does
matter when you're talking about a program, but the primary purpose doesn't
matter when you're talking about individualized stops."

He said the Indianapolis ruling could be used to mount another challenge to
CHP stops on the North Coast "if there was a sufficient number of those
stops to provide the implication that there is a program in place, even if
it's unwritten."