HIGH COURT TO REVIEW ROADBLOCKS

Indianapolis Used Them In Anti-drug Campaign

Police say drug-sniffing dogs and traffic roadblocks are potent weapons in
their war-on-drug arsenal.

For more than a year, police departments have been reluctant to send
officers out to flag down motorists on the highway and examine their
driver's licenses while dogs roamed outside the cars, sniffing for cocaine,
heroin and other illegal drugs.

The practice was put on hold when a federal appeals court ruled that an
Indianapolis program geared to stopping drug peddlers was "a pretext for a
dragnet search for criminals" and is unconstitutional.

Indianapolis officials say there's not much difference between
drunken-driving roadblocks - which are constitutional - and drug
roadblocks, and that the minor inconvenience they cause drivers is worth it
if drug dealers are snagged.

The Supreme Court agreed to settle the dispute and will listen to both
sides Tuesday. A decision will be months away.

John Krull, executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, said
that if the justices agree with Indianapolis that random roadblocks are
fair, "you're not going to be secure in your person, in your home. ... The
Fourth Amendment won't mean anything anymore."

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution says:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
person or thing to be seized."

ICLU attorneys will argue the case before the Supreme Court on behalf of
two Indianapolis motorists who were caught in the roadblock but were not
arrested.

Indianapolis police developed the program in response to neighborhood
complaints about drug dealers, said Beth White, deputy corporation counsel
for the city.

During six roadblocks over three months in 1998, police stopped 1,161 cars
and ended up arresting 104 drivers; 55 were charged with drug offenses, and
49 were charged with other violations.

"We believe if the program is random," White said, "it is not an
unreasonable search and seizure. ... Our position is that the direct harm
that grows out of the drug trade is sufficient to justify this minimum
intrusion."

Groups representing the nation's governors, counties and mayors agree and
filed "friend of the court" briefs supporting Indianapolis' arguments.

But not all police officials embrace random drug roadblocks. Both Allen
County Sheriff Jim Herman and Fort Wayne Police Chief Rusty York think
they're distasteful.

"It certainly smacks of the police state for people to be stopped on their
way to some place," when there's no probable cause - the car weaving from
lane to lane, for instance - that something is amiss, Herman said.

"Roadblocks are contrary to my philosophy of law enforcement," he said.

York said he thinks throwing a net as wide as a random roadblock violates
people's rights. ... "You're stopping so many people and interrupting their
travel or their business."

The city and county police departments teamed up to operate a random drug
roadblock once. It was in 1998, about the same time Indianapolis police
launched their program.

"We got a lot of citizen complaints," Herman said. "They said they weren't
doing anything wrong and were just stopped because they were driving in a
particular place. And we didn't get a lot (of contraband) out of it. You
have to weigh those things."

One of the complaints came from then-Mayor Paul Helmke, who got caught in a
traffic jam in Indianapolis during one of the roadblocks. He said when he
returned to Fort Wayne and found out that local police had conducted the
same kind of roadblock, he put an end to it.

Mark Dobson, a professor at Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., said that if the Supreme Court decides Indianapolis is
right, it will open the door to many other ways police could stop people
when there is no obvious clue that a crime has been committed.