State Court to Decide Drunk Checkpoint Case : Law: Justices will hear prosecutors’ challenge to ruling that police must give advance notice of roadblocks. In second case, former executive who joined monastery is absolved of spousal support.

Ruling in an Orange County case that could affect motorists statewide, the state Supreme Court agreed Thursday to decide whether authorities must provide advance publicity about police roadblocks set up to catch drunk drivers.

In a brief order, the justices said they would hear a challenge by Orange County prosecutors to a court ruling by the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana last November that said advance public notice was essential to a constitutionally valid roadblock.

In another action Thursday, the justices let stand an Orange County Superior Court ruling allowing a man to cease paying spousal support after he quit his high-paying job as a sales executive and entered a monastery. The lower court held that Patrick J. Meegan chose in good faith to heed a religious calling, not to avoid his support obligations.

Sobriety checkpoints are employed widely in California in the wake of a landmark 1987 state high court ruling approving their use. The court said then that with proper safeguards, any intrusion on the rights of motorists was outweighed by the public need to deter drunk driving.

Attorneys said Thursday that the case the court agreed to hear could determine not only whether advance warnings of the time and place of roadblocks were specifically required but also what other steps must be taken by authorities to minimize any invasion of privacy rights.

“No one disputes that drunk driving is a serious problem,” Orange County Deputy Public Defender Alan J. Crivaro said. “But there has to be balance with the intrusion that checkpoints cause . . . and advance publicity provides that.”

“Police don’t like an advance warning because they think it will diminish their effectiveness,” said Crivaro, who added that he believes advance notice of checkpoints will in fact help deter drunk driving. “Notices of checkpoints will put people on alert that they cannot and should not drink and drive.”

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory J. Robischon welcomed the action, saying he had received calls from prosecutors’ offices across the state urging an appeal of the appellate court decision in order to clarify the law.

While many police agencies provide advance publicity on checkpoints as a means of deterring drunk driving, such notice should not be required under the U.S. Constitution, Robischon said.

The court at least should resolve such questions as to what extent roadblocks must be publicized, whether public notices must be issued in foreign languages and whether police must buy advertising to publicize checkpoints, he said.

The case arose when Mary Louise Banks of Los Angeles was arrested for drunk driving in 1990 at a sobriety checkpoint in Seal Beach. Banks was convicted and placed on probation while defense attorneys challenged her arrest, contending that checkpoint was illegal because there was no advance publicity.

On Nov. 25, the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana overturned Banks’ conviction, saying advance warnings were required. Orange County prosecutors then appealed to the state high court, contending that neither its 1987 ruling nor decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court mandated publicity.

The prosecutors acknowledged that advance warnings were among several factors the justices cited in 1987 as minimizing intrusions on motorists--along with such steps as limiting the length of delay. But the court stopped short of requiring police to perform all such steps, prosecutors said.

In the spousal support case, attorneys for Meegan’s former wife, Elizabeth Ann Meegan, had argued that entering a monastery is “no different than if Patrick had simply decided to stop all work and to spend the rest of his life surfing.”

Attorney Michael Leight, who represented Meegan, declined to comment Thursday.

Attorney Jonathan R. Cox, who represented Patrick Meegan, said he is pleased that the lower court ruling will stand but feels that his client has been wrongly portrayed as a man trying to escape his obligations.

“There was never any evidence that this was like ‘surfing,’ ” said Cox, who noted that his client remains in a monastery and said he is deeply devoted to his new life. “My client reached an important point in his life where he realized he wanted to spend his life doing good works.”

Cox said he does not believe that the ruling will encourage spouses to retaliate against former husbands or wives by dropping their jobs.

“These types of cases should be determined on the specific facts involved,” Cox said. “I think this ruling just says you don’t necessarily have to be a slave for the rest of your life.”