On Sunday, California’s Daily Breeze newspaper ran a letter to the editor from Gary Meyer challenging ABI’s claim that sobriety checkpoints waste time and money:
The same Breeze edition also contained an article about a sobriety checkpoint in Hawthorne in which 234 vehicles were impounded as a result of unlicensed drivers and unregistered and uninsured cars. 234 cars!
…These checkpoints obviously remove more hazards from the roadway than the drunken driver alone.
We hear Mr. Meyer’s argument a lot and it’s not only wrongheaded, but unconstitutional.
In 1990, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the severity of the drunk driving problem (at that time) outweighed concerns of intrusion to motorists at sobriety checkpoints.
No one can seriously dispute the magnitude of the drunken driving problem or the States’ interest in eradicating it…
Conversely, the weight bearing on the other scale — the measure of the intrusion on motorists stopped briefly at sobriety checkpoints — is slight.
- Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, No. 88-1897
It is well-recognized that the purpose of checkpoints is to observe driver sobriety, not impound vehicles of unlicensed motorists or write tickets for broken taillights.
In fact, in that very opinion, Chief Justice Rhenquist noted that:
In Delaware v. Prouse, supra, we disapproved random stops made by Delaware Highway Patrol officers in an effort to apprehend unlicensed drivers and unsafe vehicles. We observed that no empirical evidence indicated that such stops would be an effective means of promoting roadway safety.
[...] everyone agrees that checkpoints are fair, or a good use of resources, but at least one major study suggests that heavy publicity of them cuts down on DWI [...]
An ABI blog entry mentioned a collection of pro-MADD articles in the Frederick News-Post. One of the articles focused on roadblocks:
“The June checkpoint lasted for 2 1/2 hours with 406 vehicles passing through. Two of four people stopped for further testing were arrested on a charge of driving under the influence or driving while intoxicated.” (November 8, 2009).
That’s 406 drivers – plus their passengers – detained with no probable cause. “Detained” is really a euphemism for ‘arrested’ since the trapped drivers were not free to leave until a trooper decided they had not been drinking and all their papers were in order. Of the 406 drivers, 2 were charged with DUI or DWI, which is a mere 0.5 percent of the drivers stopped.
Equally important is the fact that 50 percent of the drivers subjected to more intensive testing were released after being forced to prove their innocence, which means the police guessed wrong in judging sobriety in half the cases and could be wrong in the other half.
It is not uncommon for police to exaggerate when filling out DUI reports or simply rubberstamp the forms, e.g., “glassy eyes” – check; “wide right turn” – check.
“Chicago police officer Richard Fiorito is now facing 37 lawsuits alleging he intentionally targeted gay and lesbian drivers to issue false DUI arrests.
The lawsuits claim Fiorito was looking to capitalize on overtime pay issued to police officers when they appear in court to testify in a DUI case. Fiorito made 313 DUI arrests between January of 2007 and June of 2008; the officer was even honored by MADD for his efforts. Most of these arrests were against gay and lesbian suspects. He supposedly targeted these individuals when they left gay and lesbian bars or frequented gay and lesbian areas.
New dash cam evidence is pointing to the fact these arrest reports may have been exaggerated if not totally falsified.”
http://www.duiattorney.com/news/6136-more-lawsuits-against-chicago-dui-cop-richard-fiorito
When conducting sobriety roadblocks, police are supposed to systematically check cars, e.g., every third vehicle or every fourth. But that doesn’t mean they don’t ignore the rule or that drivers won’t be subjected to harassment for “driving while black” or being a “long-haired hippie” or a “goth punk.” A driver could be subjected to excessive scrutiny based on profiling, e.g., a 24 year-old male in a pickup truck.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed roadblocks (Michigan v Sitz) was based on drastically inflated statistics. Chief Justice Rehnquist (and the justices who sided with him in the 6-3 ruling) weighed the greatly exaggerated numbers against what Rehnquist called the “slight intrusion” of being stopped. That’s tricky, twisted logic because he transformed the Bill of Rights (specifically the 4th Amendment) to a slight, insignificant inconvenience – then put his weightless creation on the balance scales against magnified figures taken out of context.
Drivers and passengers funneled like sheep through roadblocks are more than inconvenienced – they are being robbed of their rights.
Stephen Beck