State Justices Accept Sobriety Checkpoint Case

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 November state appeals court ruling that said advance notice was essential to a constitutionally valid roadblock.

Sobriety checkpoints are employed widely in California in the wake of a landmark 1987 state high court ruling that approved their use. The court said then that with proper safeguards, any intrusion on the rights of motorists was outweighed by the 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,” said Orange County Deputy Public Defender Alan J. Crivaro. “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.”

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 to clarify the law.

Although 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 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 the checkpoint was illegal because there was no advance publicity.

On Nov. 25, a state Court of Appeal overturned Banks’ conviction, saying advance warnings were required. Prosecutors 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.