POLICE CHECKPOINTS ENSURE SAFER ROADS

Our position: Sobriety checkpoints are a useful tool, but they must
operate within the narrow scope of the law.

Police need to have all the tools necessary to find and remove
drunken drivers from the roadways, even if it briefly inconveniences
those who have broken no laws.

But since November 2000, they've been stripped of a potent tool
available to catch such drivers before they hurt innocent motorists.

Thanks to an Indiana Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday, law enforcement
again has that option at its disposal. The justices overturned a
ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals that prohibited sobriety
checkpoints as unreasonable seizures under the state's constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court had previously upheld such roadblocks under
the federal Constitution. And both high courts have insisted on an
important caveat: Checkpoints are permitted to snare impaired
drivers, but are not to be used as fishing expeditions to look for
illegal drugs or other law violations.

The case stemmed from the 1999 arrest of a St. Joseph County man at a
checkpoint in Mishawaka. A lower court had decided his arrest for
driving while intoxicated was proper, but the Indiana Court of
Appeals reversed, citing the state constitutional right against
invasion of privacy.

While restoring the practice of checkpoints, the court objected to
the roadblock in question because it was not narrowly targeted at the
drunken driving problem, but also was used to catch motorists for
seat-belt and child-restraint violations and for making sure drivers
had proper license, registration and insurance information.

Attorney General Steve Carter says his office will prepare written
guidelines to distribute to police agencies to make sure their
checkpoints meet constitutional standards.

There is no reason to believe that police can't, or won't, conduct
sobriety checkpoints within the parameters of the law. And once
everybody knows the rules, highways will become safer.

We have strong doubts that schools will be safer, however, as the
result of another Tuesday ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court
upholding a drug-testing policy at Northwestern School Corp. near
Kokomo.

The justices said students who participate in sports or
extracurricular activities may be required to take random drug tests,
a common practice statewide also put on hold after a Court of Appeals
ruling.

These policies may be constitutional, but they could also be
counterproductive. It seems to us that active youngsters who stay
after school for chess club or drama or basketball practice are not
the ones with drug problems who need to be monitored.