COURT NIXES RANDOM DRIVER CHECKS

Police Can't Use License-and-registration Checkpoints To Search For Drugs,
The 2nd District Court Of Appeal Says

TAMPA - An appeals court snatched a weapon Wednesday from the Tampa Police
Department's drug-fighting arsenal.

The court ruled that the department's practice of periodically stopping
drivers at random to check for a valid license and registration was mostly
an excuse to snoop for drugs.

The ruling threw out the conviction of Charles Edward Davis, who pleaded
guilty to cocaine possession but reserved his right to appeal after the
trial judge rejected his claim that the traffic stop was unconstitutional.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal held unanimously that a search made of
Davis' car after the stop was a violation of his Fourth Amendment
protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Prosecutors are not expected to challenge the decision.

The ruling, attorneys agreed, would invalidate other drug arrests made at
checkpoints if, like Davis, the defendants had unsuccessfully challenged
searches in court. But nobody was able to say how many other such cases
there might be, if any.

Police officials had no immediate comment, and it was unclear Wednesday
whether the police still use the checkpoint program.

Davis was pulled over June 30, 1999, at East 26th Avenue and 22nd Street as
part of a program called Operation Safe Streets. Police found an ounce of
cocaine in his car, and Davis was charged with cocaine possession and
driving without a valid license.

Judgment was withheld on the cocaine charge, and he was given 18 months'
probation. Meanwhile, Davis was convicted of driving without a license and
sentenced to time already served.

Prosecutors argued that police were stopping every fifth car primarily to
check for a valid license and registration.

"If you get drugs, that's fine, too, but basically it's a driver's license
checkpoint," Officer Steven Lee testified.

But the appeals court cited Lee's own written description of Operation Safe
Streets, in which he said it was "designed to take back the neighborhoods
with repeated complaints of narcotic activity from dealers and buyers, and
prostitution."