DRUG STOPS RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Last week's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has brought a halt to roadway
drug checkpoints in West Virginia, as the state's method closely resembles
the Indianapolis procedure discredited by the high court's decision,
officials said Thursday.

"We won't be doing any more drug checkpoints," said Sgt. Mike Corsaro,
State Police spokesman. "We still have to go through the court's ruling,
but at this point, we're not going to be doing any."

But the wording of the court's 6-3 decision - and the reasoning expressed
in the two dissenting opinions - may not spell a permanent end to such
drug-searching methods, civil libertarians say.

"It's a victory in that the court, again, affirmed the principle that law
enforcement will not be able to cut these kinds of constitutional corners
in their war on drugs," said Hilary Chiz, executive director of the state
American Civil Liberties Union chapter.

But Chiz also said that in their anti-drug efforts, law enforcement may
continue to seek ways "to search, stop and frisk until they find a way that
passes constitutional scrutiny."

The State Police conducted at least a dozen checkpoints on West Virginia
roads in the past two years, usually in partnership with the federal High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

The program has an agency, called the Appalachia HIDTA, which covers West
Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. The agency receives about $6 million a
year, with $1.45 million budgeted for West Virginia efforts this year.

The State Police, one of 16 law enforcement agencies involved with
Appalachia HIDTA, conducts the checkpoints as part of the program's
"Interdiction Team" strategy.

Although Appalachia HIDTA focuses on 11 southern and central counties in
the state, drug checkpoints have been done in other parts of West Virginia.
Chiz said her office often fields complaints about them, most recently from
an Eastern Panhandle music festival. Concertgoers, including a number from
out of state, were stopped on their way into the event, Chiz was told.

Chiz also questioned the reasoning behind some of the checkpoint sites,
recalling one set up astride W.Va. 2 in Green Bottom, an Ohio River town in
northern Cabell County.

"They have conducted many checkpoints in questionably high drug traffic
areas," she said.

Corsaro, the State Police spokesman, said he did not know how many drug
checkpoints the State Police had set up, or where they were located, in the
two years since the program started. Corsaro also said he could not gauge
the checkpoints' success, or say how the drug checkpoints fit into the
department's overall anti-drug strategy.

"I know we've used the drug checkpoints in the past," he said.

Kenny Burner, deputy director of Appalachian HIDTA, said the program will
continue to employ other tools to "stop the flow of drugs into and out of
the region." The program also seeks to stop drug trafficked via the mail
and commercial transport.

Burner's office considers marijuana the chief target of such measures as
the checkpoints.

"The most predominant illegal drug used throughout the area is, without
reservation, marijuana," the agency said in a release this year.
"Marijuana's cultural acceptance allows trafficking and consumption to
flourish, to the point that marijuana has become a substantial component of
the local economy."

In the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the justices upheld a ban on vehicle
checkpoints set up by Indianapolis. The region's federal appeals court
granted the ban after a group of people stopped at the roadblocks sued
alleging their rights were violated.

The Supreme Court concluded that the checkpoints, as conducted by
Indianapolis, violate the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable
searches and seizures.

"Without drawing the line at roadblocks designed primarily to serve the
general interest in crime control, the Fourth Amendment would do little to
prevent such intrusions from becoming a routine part of American life," the
opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said.

The ruling contrasts drug checkpoints with roadblocks set up to catch drunk
drivers, which the Supreme Court has OK'd.

"This [DUI] checkpoint program was clearly aimed at reducing the immediate
hazard posed by the presence of drunk drivers on the highways," Tuesday's
ruling said.

But as for drug checkpoints, "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,"
O'Connor wrote.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote one of the dissents, arguing that
drug checkpoints "serve a weighty state interest with only minimal
intrusion on the privacy of [vehicle] occupants." Rehnquist questioned the
constitutionality of a DUI checkpoint that also happened to feature a
drug-sniffing dog.

Responding to that argument, the majority opinion notes that "the
constitutional defect of the program is that its primary purpose is to
advance the general interest in crime control, " an unconstitutionally
vague purpose.

The ruling also pointed out that it does not affect "the validity of border
searches or searches in airports and government buildings," nor does it
specifically limit "individual officers acting at the scene."