U.S. Justices Halt Drug Roadblocks

The Supreme Court called a halt Tuesday to narcotics roadblocks, ruling that police may not routinely stop all motorists in hopes of finding a few drug criminals.

In a 6-3 opinion, the court stressed that the 4th Amendment forbids police from searching people without some specific reason to believe that they did something wrong.

While police have broad authority to stop motorists for traffic violations, they do not have a general authority to stop cars “to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing,” wrote Justice Sandra Day O’Connor for the court.

Tuesday’s ruling is the third this year that breathes new life into the 4th Amendment. It comes as a mild surprise because, until recently, the justices had sided regularly with law enforcement in the war on drugs.

Earlier this year, the court ruled that police may not stop and search a pedestrian based entirely on a vague and anonymous tip phoned to police headquarters. The justices said that the 4th Amendment requires more specific evidence of wrongdoing.

The justices also ruled that police may not squeeze or feel a traveler’s bags in a random search for illegal drugs. In that ruling, in the case of Bond vs. United States, the justices threw out drug evidence against a bus passenger who was arrested after an officer felt a brick of methamphetamine in his satchel. The court said that a traveler’s handbags are private and off limits to searches, except when an officer has a specific reason to look for drugs.

Narcotics roadblocks are rare, but the Indianapolis case tested whether they could be used nationwide.

In August 1998, city police there set up six checkpoints to stop cars. Their intention was to cut the flow of illegal drugs in and out of the city.

When a motorist was stopped, an officer asked to see his or her driver’s license. At the same time, a second officer with a drug-sniffing dog circled the vehicle. If the first officer or the dog detected anything suspicious, the vehicle was pulled aside and searched.

Over four months, police said that they stopped 1,161 motorists and made 104 arrests. Fifty-five of the arrests were for drug offenses and 49 were for other reasons.

When several detained motorists complained about the stops, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city, contending that the checkpoint stops were unconstitutional.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago agreed on a 2-1 vote that the roadblocks violated the 4th Amendment. But in the spring, the high court said it would hear the city’s appeal.

Lawyers for the city candidly admitted that their purpose was to catch drug criminals, not to enforce traffic safety.

They also had two good precedents on their side. In 1989, the high court had upheld sobriety roadblocks, ruling that the need to catch drunken drivers outweighed the privacy of innocent motorists.

And in 1976, the court had upheld the government’s power to stop motorists at the immigration checkpoint on Interstate 5 near San Diego. Near the borders, officials may use extra authority to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers, the court said.

On Tuesday, the justices refused to extend those precedents.

“We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that any given motorist has committed some crime,” O’Connor said in her opinion in the case (City of Indianapolis vs. Edmond, 99-1030).

Officers can set up emergency roadblocks to catch a fleeing criminal, she added. Moreover, airports and government buildings are justified in using metal detectors to protect the public safety, she said. But if crime fighting is the purpose of the stops, officers need an “individualized suspicion” of wrongdoing, she concluded. Her opinion was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

In dissent, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said that the roadblocks “effectively serve a weighty interest with only minimal intrusion on the privacy” of motorists. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed.

The ACLU’s legal director, Stephen R. Shapiro, hailed the ruling as a victory for civil liberties. “Even a conservative court is not willing to countenance the serious erosion of our basic constitutional rights in the name of the war on drugs,” he said.