SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN RANDOM DRUG ROADBLOCKS

In a move applauded by the American Civil Liberties Union and the San
Francisco Police Department, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled
unconstitutional the use of random roadblocks designed to stop drug criminals.

The ruling does not affect law enforcement's right to set up sobriety and
border checks. Those measures, wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor,
specifically address public safety concerns.

But randomly searching out drug dealers falls under "general interest in
crime control," she said.

"If this case were to rest on such a high level of generality, there would
be little check on the authorities' ability to construct roadblocks for
almost any conceivable law enforcement purpose," the opinion said.

"The Supreme Court has rolled back the Fourth Amendment in pursuit of the
war on drugs," said Michelle Alexander, director of the Racial Justice
Project for the Northern California ACLU. "The fact that the Supreme Court
had granted review of this case led people to believe that we were facing
the day when checkpoints could be set up in minority neighborhoods."

Such a practice could dramatically extend racial profiling.

The court ruled on a 2-year-old Indianapolis program to target high-crime
areas in which police randomly stopped motorists, questioned them and led a
drug-sniffing dog around their cars.

Dissenting in the 6-3 vote were Chief Justice William Rehnquist and
justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

Rehnquist termed the stops "minimal intrusions," adding that they helped
yield drunks and people driving without the proper paperwork.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two
motorists.

San Francisco Police Department Inspector Sherman Ackerson welcome the
decision.

"It's just as well that the court threw it out," Ackerson said. "We've
never entertained the idea of simply stopping people for drugs. That kind
of thing often leads to other problems like profiling.

"It does smack of a totalitarian kind of approach to the drug problem."

The natural extension of roadblocks for drugs would be stops for any kind
of general crime check, he said. "I suppose we could pull you over and ask,
'Have you been transporting drugs, have you been using drugs, have you
beaten your wife?' "

Alexander disputed Rehnquist's assertion that the stops constituted only
minimal intrusion.

"Anyone who has experienced being stopped, questioned and having a
drug-sniffing dog encircle their vehicle has felt threatened, especially
people of color and poor people," she said.

Joseph Grodin, a law professor at Hastings and former associate justice of
the California Supreme Court, said today's ruling enforced the right to
privacy.

"It makes an important point, that people have a reasonable expectation of
privacy, even when they are in their automobiles," he said. "And you can't
interfere with that."

Charles Weisselberg, a Boalt Hall law professor, said: "What we've been
seeing is an increasing effort to set up roadblocks or other broad measures
of interdiction on an increasing number of circumstances."

He added: "The court apparently felt that if this trend continued
completely unchecked that there would be little left of the Fourth Amendment.

"They've cleared up an ambiguity there," said Jesse Choper, a
constitutional law professor at Boalt Hall. "It makes clear that a
roadblock is going to be in trouble if its purpose is simply to enforce
criminal prohibitions as opposed to some other safety purpose."