STATE SUPREME COURT CALLS '97 ROADBLOCK LEGAL

NASHVILLE - The Tennessee Supreme Court has clarified and strengthened
its stand that police roadblocks must be carefully planned and
administered to pass muster under the state constitution. All five
justices agreed that a drivers' license roadblock established by state
and local police outside Chattanooga in 1997 was illegal, although
they differed on the reasons for that conclusion.

The majority opinion written by Justice William M. Barker was agreed
to by Justice Janice Holder. Two other justices said it came to the
right conclusion but did not go far enough, while Chief Justice Frank
Drowota concurred but thought it went too far.

The case involved a roadblock established late at night near the
Hamilton-Marion county line by the Tennessee Highway Patrol and police
from Chattanooga and Red Bank, ostensibly to check for people driving
without a license.

However, the court found, the local authorities appear to have been
looking for something other than unlicensed drivers because a
drug-sniffing dog was at the scene, and one officer had the picture of
a suspected serial rapist.

The roadblock led to the arrest of Larry Allen Hicks after police
smelled marijuana in his car and discovered five pounds of it in his
front seat.

The court said state officials must be very careful in establishing
roadblocks because people are stopped without any suspicion of
wrongdoing, a questionable practice given the protection against
illegal searches and seizures contained in both the U.S. and Tennessee
constitutions.

In his dissent, Drowota said the majority was right only because the
roadblock in question did not follow the requirements for
administrative approval because it was improperly conducted under the
discretion of only one of the officers present.