Anaheim Considers Sobriety Checks : Police May Set Up Roadblocks Despite Court’s Ruling

Anaheim police may still set up sobriety checkpoints as planned on Thanksgiving weekend, despite a Superior Court ruling that found the checkpoints to be unconstitutional, Assistant City Atty. Mark Logan said Friday.

Logan explained that the ruling does not appear to offer clear guidelines to the city.

The court’s decision, which upheld a North Orange County Municipal Court judge’s ruling that the checkpoints constituted an unreasonable search, was handed down Thursday without comment by Appellate Division Judges Philip E. Schwab and Richard J. Beacom.

A third judge, Frank Domenichini, wrote an 11-page opinion that dissented from the majority ruling.

Intend to Appeal

“We don’t really know how to evaluate the ruling,” Logan said. “The only written opinion on this case--Domenichini’s opinion--upholds (the constitutionality of) the checkpoints. We don’t know if yesterday’s decision means that checkpoints are unconstitutional per se, or if there was just some sort of procedural irregularity.

“We do intend to appeal the decision in the state courts, however,” Logan said. “In the meantime, we might proceed (with the roadblocks) and we might not.”

A written opinion explaining the court’s reasons for its decision would have provided police departments and other Municipal Courts with a precedent in evaluating similar roadblock operations, added Deputy City Atty. Charles Salovesh, who prosecuted the current case before the court.

The roadblocks, which were first used by Anaheim police in November, 1984, operate within the guidelines established by the California attorney general’s office, Anaheim Police Lt. James Thalman said.

Checkpoint Warnings

Signs warning drivers that they are approaching a sobriety checkpoint are posted far enough ahead so that drivers may turn onto another street or change places with a passenger, Thalman said, adding that cars are stopped according to whatever regular interval traffic permits--”every car, if possible”--but never arbitrarily.

“The whole thing takes 15 to 30 seconds,” said Thalman, who heads the Police Department’s traffic bureau. “If the officer sees no evidence of drinking, the car is waved on. It is an excellent, effective method of getting the message across to drivers--don’t drink and drive.”

The checkpoints, Thalman said, are set up in locations and during times--typically, holiday periods--that traditionally have a high incidence of drunk-driving arrests and accidents. Last New Year’s Eve, the highest number of sobriety arrests in the city were made at a checkpoint on Knott Avenue. Of 1,099 cars stopped, police arrested 19 people for drunk driving.

Defendant Arrested Before

In the case before the court, Wayne Leroy Chapman, 40, who had been convicted twice before for driving while intoxicated, was arrested at a checkpoint on Katella Avenue near Clementine Street last December.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Joan Howarth, who filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of Chapman’s defense, said it would be “foolish for Anaheim to continue using that method to make questionable arrests in light of a second ruling against them.”

But she welcomed the prospect of an appeal by the prosecution.

“This is an important point of law, and we need a decision from the state court of appeals,” Howarth said. “Everyone has the right to proceed on his or her way without being stopped by the police. People should be stopped because they are doing something suspicious, not because they’re on the wrong road at the wrong time.”

However, Thalman said: “We’re surprised at the decision, and we would certainly like to continue using the roadblocks in the future.

“But we will wait to see what the city attorney says--however he rules, that is how we will proceed.”