Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/496/444
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 17:02:23+00:00

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Petitioners, the Michigan State Police Department and its Director, established a highway sobriety checkpoint program with guidelines governing checkpoint operations, site selection, and publicity. During the only operation to date, 126 vehicles passed through the checkpoint, the average delay per vehicle was 25 seconds, and two drivers were arrested for driving under the influence. The day before that operation, respondents, licensed Michigan drivers, filed suit in a county court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from potential subjection to the checkpoints. After a trial, at which the court heard extensive testimony concerning, among other things, the "effectiveness" of such programs, the court applied the balancing test of Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, and ruled that the State's program violated the Fourth Amendment. The State Court of Appeals affirmed, agreeing with the lower court's findings that the State has a "grave and legitimate" interest in curbing drunken driving; that sobriety checkpoint programs are generally ineffective and, therefore, do not significantly further that interest; and that, while the checkpoints' objective intrusion on individual liberties is slight, their "subjective intrusion" is substantial.
(a) United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 -- which utilized a balancing test in upholding checkpoints for detecting illegal aliens -- and Brown v. Texas, supra, are the relevant authorities to be used in evaluating the constitutionality of the State's program. Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, was not designed to repudiate this Court's prior cases dealing with police stops of motorists on public highways and, thus, does not forbid the use of a balancing test here. Pp. 448-450.
(c) There is no dispute about the magnitude of, and the States' interest in eradicating, the drunken driving problem. The courts below accurately gauged the "objective" intrusion, measured by the seizure's duration and the investigation's intensity, as minimal. However, they [p445] misread this Court's cases concerning the degree of "subjective intrusion" and the potential for generating fear and surprise. The "fear and surprise" to be considered are not the natural fear of one who has been drinking over the prospect of being stopped at a checkpoint but, rather, the fear and surprise engendered in law abiding motorists by the nature of the particular stop, such as one made by a roving patrol operating on a seldom-traveled road. Here, checkpoints are selected pursuant to guidelines, and uniformed officers stop every vehicle. The resulting intrusion is constitutionally indistinguishable from the stops upheld in Martinez-Fuerte. Pp. 451-453.
(d) The Court of Appeals also erred in finding that the program failed the "effectiveness" part of the Brown test. This balancing factor -- which Brown actually describes as "the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest" -- was not meant to transfer from politically accountable officials to the courts the choice as to which among reasonable alternative law enforcement techniques should be employed to deal with a serious public danger. Moreover, the court mistakenly relied on Martinez-Fuerte, supra, and Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, to provide a basis for its "effectiveness" review. Unlike Delaware v. Prouse, this case involves neither random stops nor a complete absence of empirical data indicating that the stops would be an effective means of promoting roadway safety. And there is no justification for a different conclusion here than in Martinez-Fuerte, where the ratio of illegal aliens detected to vehicles stopped was approximately .5 percent, as compared with the approximately 1.5 percent detection ratio in the one checkpoint conducted by Michigan and with the 1 percent ratio demonstrated by other States' experience. Pp. 453-455.
balancing the state's interest in preventing accidents caused by drunk drivers, the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints in achieving that goal, and the level of intrusion on an individual's privacy caused by the checkpoints.
170 Mich.App. at 439, 429 N.W.2d, at 182 (citing Brown, supra, 443 U.S. at 50-51). The Court of Appeals agreed that "the Brown three-prong balancing test was the correct test to be used to determine the constitutionality of the sobriety checkpoint plan." 170 Mich.App., at 439, 429 N.W.2d, at 182.
Where a Fourth Amendment intrusion serves special governmental needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, it is necessary to balance the individual's privacy expectations against the Government's interests to determine whether it is impractical to require a warrant [p450] or some level of individualized suspicion in the particular context.
Id. at 665-666. Respondents argue that there must be a showing of some special governmental need "beyond the normal need" for criminal law enforcement before a balancing analysis is appropriate, and that petitioners have demonstrated no such special need.
Petitioners concede, correctly in our view, that a Fourth Amendment "seizure" occurs when a vehicle is stopped at a checkpoint. Tr. of Oral Arg. 11; see Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 556 ("It is agreed that checkpoint stops are ‘seizures' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment"); Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 597 (1989) (Fourth Amendment seizure occurs "when there is a governmental termination of freedom of movement through means intentionally applied" (emphasis in original)). The question thus becomes whether such seizures are "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment.
It is important to recognize what our inquiry is not about. No allegations are before us of unreasonable treatment of any person after an actual detention at a particular checkpoint. See Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. at 559 ("claim that a particular exercise of discretion in locating or operating a checkpoint is unreasonable is subject to post-stop judicial review"). As pursued in the lower courts, the instant action challenges only the use of sobriety checkpoints generally. We address only the initial stop of each motorist passing through a checkpoint and the associated preliminary questioning and observation [p451] by checkpoint officers. Detention of particular motorists for more extensive field sobriety testing may require satisfaction of an individualized suspicion standard. Id. at 567.
No one can seriously dispute the magnitude of the drunken driving problem or the States' interest in eradicating it. Media reports of alcohol-related death and mutilation on the Nation's roads are legion. The anecdotal is confirmed by the statistical. "Drunk drivers cause an annual death toll of over 25,000 and in the same time span cause nearly one million personal injuries and more than five billion dollars in property damage." 4 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 10.8(d), p. 71 (2d ed. 1987). For decades, this Court has "repeatedly lamented the tragedy." South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 558 (1983); see Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U.S. 432, 439 (1957) ("The increasing slaughter on our highways . . . now reaches the astounding figures only heard of on the battlefield").
Conversely, the weight bearing on the other scale -- the measure of the intrusion on motorists stopped briefly at sobriety checkpoints -- is slight. We reached a similar conclusion as to the intrusion on motorists subjected to a brief stop at a highway checkpoint for detecting illegal aliens. See Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 558. We see virtually no difference between the levels of intrusion on law-abiding motorists [p452] from the brief stops necessary to the effectuation of these two types of checkpoints, which to the average motorist would seem identical save for the nature of the questions the checkpoint officers might ask. The trial court and the Court of Appeals, thus, accurately gauged the "objective" intrusion, measured by the duration of the seizure and the intensity of the investigation, as minimal. See 170 Mich.App. at 444, 429 N.W.2d at 184.
[T]he circumstances surrounding a checkpoint stop and search are far less intrusive than those attending a roving patrol stop. Roving patrols often operate at night on seldom-traveled roads, and their approach may frighten motorists. At traffic checkpoints, the motorist can see that other vehicles are being stopped, he can see visible signs of the officers' authority, and he is much less likely to be frightened or annoyed by the intrusion.
Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. at 558. See also id. at 559. Here, checkpoints are selected pursuant to the guidelines, and uniformed police officers stop every approaching vehicle. The intrusion resulting from the brief stop at the sobriety checkpoint is for constitutional purposes indistinguishable from the checkpoint stops we upheld in Martinez-Fuerte.
The actual language from Brown v. Texas, upon which the Michigan courts based their evaluation of "effectiveness," describes the balancing factor as "the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest." 443 U.S. at 51. This passage from Brown was not meant to transfer from politically accountable officials to the courts the decision as to which among reasonable alternative law enforcement techniques should be employed to deal with a serious public danger. Experts in police science might disagree over which of several methods of apprehending drunken drivers is preferable as an ideal. But for purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis, the choice among such reasonable alternatives [p454] remains with the governmental officials who have a unique understanding of, and a responsibility for, limited public resources, including a finite number of police officers. Brown's rather general reference to "the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest" was derived, as the opinion makes clear, from the line of cases culminating in Martinez-Fuerte, supra. Neither Martinez-Fuerte nor Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 (1979), however, the two cases cited by the Court of Appeals as providing the basis for its "effectiveness" review, see 170 Mich.App. at 442, 429 N.W.2d at 183, supports the searching examination of "effectiveness" undertaken by the Michigan court.
[i]t seems common sense that the percentage of all drivers on the road who are driving without a license is very small, and that the number of licensed drivers who will be stopped in order to find one unlicensed operator will be large indeed.
kind of standardless and unconstrained discretion [which] is the evil the Court has discerned when in previous cases it has insisted that the discretion of the official in the field be circumscribed, at least to some extent.
cast doubt on the permissibility of roadside truck weigh-stations and inspection checkpoints, at which some vehicles may be subject to further detention for safety and regulatory inspection than are others.
Id. at 663, n. 26.
Unlike Prouse, this case involves neither a complete absence of empirical data nor a challenge to random highway stops. During the operation of the Saginaw County checkpoint, the detention of each of the 126 vehicles that entered the checkpoint resulted in the arrest of two drunken drivers. [p455] Stated as a percentage, approximately 1.5 percent of the drivers passing through the checkpoint were arrested for alcohol impairment. In addition, an expert witness testified at the trial that experience in other States demonstrated that, on the whole, sobriety checkpoints resulted in drunken driving arrests of around 1 percent of all motorists stopped. 170 Mich.App. at 441, 429 N.W.2d at 183. By way of comparison, the record from one of the consolidated cases in Martinez-Fuerte showed that, in the associated checkpoint, illegal aliens were found in only 0.12 percent of the vehicles passing through the checkpoint. See 428 U.S. at 554. The ratio of illegal aliens detected to vehicles stopped (considering that on occasion two or more illegal aliens were found in a single vehicle) was approximately 0.5 percent. See Ibid. We concluded that this "record . . . provides a rather complete picture of the effectiveness of the San Clemente checkpoint", ibid,, and we sustained its constitutionality. We see no justification for a different conclusion here.
* Statistical evidence incorporated in the dissent suggests that this figure declined between 1982 and 1988. See post at 460-461 n. 2 and 467-468, n. 7 (citing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatal Accident Reporting System 1988). It was during this same period that police departments experimented with sobriety checkpoint systems. Petitioners, for instance, operated their checkpoint in May, 1986, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 6a, and the Maryland State Police checkpoint program, about which much testimony was given before the trial court, began in December, 1982. See id. at 84a. Indeed, it is quite possible that jurisdictions which have recently decided to implement sobriety checkpoint systems have relied on such data from the 1980s in assessing the likely utility of such checkpoints.
I fully agree with the Court's lamentations about the slaughter on our highways, and about the dangers posed to almost everyone by the driver who is under the influence of alcohol or other drug. I add this comment only to remind the Court that it has been almost 20 years since, in Perez v. [p456] Campbell, 402 U.S. 637, 657 (1971), in writing for three others (no longer on the Court) and myself, I noted that the "slaughter on the highways of this Nation exceeds the death toll of all our wars," and that I detected "little genuine public concern about what takes place in our very midst and on our daily travel routes." See also Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395, 401 (1971) (concurring statement). And in the Appendix to my writing in Perez, 402 U.S. at 672, I set forth official figures to the effect that, for the period from 1900 through 1969, motor vehicle deaths in the United States exceeded the death toll of all our wars. I have little doubt that those figures, when supplemented for the two decades since 1969, would disclose an even more discouraging comparison. I am pleased, of course, that the Court is now stressing this tragic aspect of American life. See ante at 451.
the State's interest in preventing drunken driving, the extent to which this system can reasonably be said to advance that interest, and the degree of intrusion upon individual motorists who are briefly stopped.
Ante at 455. For the reasons stated by JUSTICE STEVENS in Parts I and II of his dissenting opinion, I agree that the Court misapplies that test by undervaluing the nature of the intrusion and exaggerating the law enforcement need to use the roadblocks to prevent drunken driving. See also United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 567 (1976) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting). I write separately to express a few additional points.
Indeed, the opinion reads as if the minimal nature of the seizure ends rather than begins the inquiry into reasonableness. Once the Court establishes that the seizure is "slight," ante at 451, it asserts without explanation that the balance "weighs in favor of the state program." Ante at 455. The Court ignores the fact that, in this class of minimally intrusive searches, we have generally required the Government to prove that it had reasonable suspicion for a minimally intrusive seizure to be considered reasonable. See, e.g., Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 661 (1979); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 882-883 (1975); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27, (1968). Some level of individualized suspicion is a core component of the protection the Fourth Amendment provides against arbitrary government action. See Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 654-655; Martinez-Fuerte, supra, 428 U.S. at 577 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting) ("Action based merely on [p458] whatever may pique the curiosity of a particular officer is the antithesis of the objective standards requisite to reasonable conduct and to avoiding abuse and harassment"). By holding that no level of suspicion is necessary before the police may stop a car for the purpose of preventing drunken driving, the Court potentially subjects the general public to arbitrary or harassing conduct by the police. I would have hoped that before taking such a step, the Court would carefully explain how such a plan fits within our constitutional framework.
428 U.S. at 557. There has been no showing in this case that there is a similar difficulty in detecting individuals who are driving under the influence of alcohol, nor is it intuitively obvious that such a difficulty exists. See Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 661. That stopping every car might make it easier to prevent drunken driving, but see post at 469-471, is an insufficient justification for abandoning the requirement of individualized suspicion.
The needs of law enforcement stand in constant tension with the Constitution's protections [p459] of the individual against certain exercises of official power. It is precisely the predictability of these pressures that counsels a resolute loyalty to constitutional safeguards.
Alameida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 273 (1973). Without proof that the police cannot develop individualized suspicion that a person is driving while impaired by alcohol, I believe the constitutional balance must be struck in favor of protecting the public against even the "minimally intrusive" seizures involved in this case.
The Fourth Amendment was designed not merely to protect against official intrusions whose social utility was less as measured by some "balancing test" than its intrusion on individual privacy; it was designed in addition to grant the individual a zone of privacy whose protections could be breached only where the "reasonable" requirements of the probable cause standard were met. Moved by whatever momentary evil has aroused their fears, officials -- perhaps even supported by a majority of citizens -- may be tempted to conduct searches that sacrifice the liberty of each citizen to assuage the perceived evil. But the Fourth Amendment rests on the principle that a true balance between the individual and society depends on the recognition of "the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
New Jersey [p460] v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 361-362 (1985) (BRENNAN, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (footnote omitted).
A sobriety checkpoint is usually operated at night at an unannounced location. Surprise is crucial to its method. The test operation conducted by the Michigan State Police and the Saginaw County Sheriff's Department began shortly after midnight and lasted until about 1 a.m. During that period, the 19 officers participating in the operation made two arrests and stopped and questioned 125 other unsuspecting and innocent drivers. [n1] It is, of course, not known how many arrests would have been made during that period if those officers had been engaged in normal patrol activities. However, the findings of the trial court, based on an extensive record and affirmed by the Michigan Court of Appeals, indicate that the net effect of sobriety checkpoints on traffic safety is infinitesimal and possibly negative.
Indeed, the record in this case makes clear that a decision holding these suspicionless seizures unconstitutional would not impede the law enforcement community's remarkable progress in reducing the death toll on our highways. [n2] Because [p461] the Michigan program was patterned after an older program in Maryland, the trial judge gave special attention to that State's experience. Over a period of several years, Maryland operated 125 checkpoints; of the 41,000 motorists passing through those checkpoints, only 143 persons (0.3%) were arrested. [n3] The number of man-hours devoted to these [p462] operations is not in the record, but it seems inconceivable that a higher arrest rate could not have been achieved by more conventional means. [n4] Yet, even if the 143 checkpoint arrests were assumed to involve a net increase in the number of drunk driving arrests per year, the figure would still be insignificant by comparison to the 71,000 such arrests made by Michigan State Police without checkpoints in 1984 alone. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 97a.
Maryland had conducted a study comparing traffic statistics between a county using checkpoints and a control county. The results of the study showed that alcohol-related accidents in the checkpoint county decreased by ten percent, whereas the control county saw an eleven percent decrease; and while fatal accidents in the control county fell from sixteen to three, fatal accidents in the checkpoint county actually doubled from the prior year.
170 Mich.App. 433, 443, 429 N.W.2d 180, 184.
In light of these considerations, it seems evident that the Court today misapplies the balancing test announced in Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 50-51 (1979). The Court overvalues the law enforcement interest in using sobriety checkpoints, undervalues the citizen's interest in freedom from random, unannounced investigatory seizures, and mistakenly assumes that there is "virtually no difference" between a routine stop at a permanent, fixed checkpoint and a [p463] surprise stop at a sobriety checkpoint. I believe this case is controlled by our several precedents condemning suspicionless random stops of motorists for investigatory purposes. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 (1979); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873 (1975); United States v. Ortiz, 422 U.S. 891 (1975); Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266 (1973); cf. Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 153-154 (1925).
There is a critical difference between a seizure that is preceded by fair notice and one that is effected by surprise. See Wyman v. James, 400 U.S. 309, 320-321 (1971); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 559 (1976); Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 513-514 (1978) (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). That is one reason why a border search, or indeed any search at a permanent and fixed checkpoint, is much less intrusive than a random stop. A motorist with advance notice of the location of a permanent checkpoint has an opportunity to avoid the search entirely, or at least to prepare for, and limit, the intrusion on her privacy.
We cannot agree that stopping or detaining a vehicle on an ordinary city street is less intrusive than a roving-patrol stop on a major highway, and that it bears greater resemblance to a permissible stop and secondary detention at a checkpoint near the border. In this regard, we note that Brignoni-Ponce was not limited to roving-patrol stops on limited-access roads, but applied to any roving-patrol stop by Border Patrol agents on any type of roadway on less than reasonable suspicion. See 422 U.S. at 882-883; United States v. Ortiz, 422 U.S. 891, 894 (1975). We cannot assume that the physical and psychological intrusion visited upon the occupants of a vehicle by a random stop to check documents is of any less moment than that occasioned by a stop by border agents on roving patrol. Both of these stops generally entail law enforcement officers signaling a moving automobile to pull over to the side of the roadway, by means of a possibly unsettling show of authority. Both interfere with freedom of movement, are inconvenient, and consume time. Both may create substantial anxiety.
is a sufficiently productive mechanism to justify the intrusion upon Fourth Amendment interests which such stops entail. On the record before us, that question must be answered in the negative. Given the alternative mechanisms available, both those in use and those that might be adopted, we are unconvinced that the incremental contribution to highway safety of the random spot check justifies the practice under the Fourth Amendment.
Consideration of the constitutionality of such seizures involves a weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty.
The gravity of the public concern with highway safety that is implicated by this case is, of course, undisputed. [n7] [p468] Yet that same grave concern was implicated in Delaware v. Prouse. Moreover, I do not understand the Court to have placed any lesser value on the importance of the drug problem implicated in Texas v. Brown, or on the need to control the illegal border crossings that were at stake in Almeida-Sanchez and its progeny. [n8] A different result in this case must be justified by the other two factors in the Brown formulation.
As I have already explained, I believe the Court is quite wrong in blithely asserting that a sobriety checkpoint is no more intrusive than a permanent checkpoint. In my opinion, unannounced investigatory seizures are, particularly when [p469] they take place at night, the hallmark of regimes far different from ours; [n9] the surprise intrusion upon individual liberty is not minimal. On that issue, my difference with the Court may amount to nothing less than a difference in our respective evaluations of the importance of individual liberty, a serious albeit inevitable source of constitutional disagreement. [n10] On the degree to which the sobriety checkpoint seizures advance the public interest, however, the Court's position is wholly indefensible.
The Court's analysis of this issue resembles a business decision that measures profits by counting gross receipts and ignoring expenses. The evidence in this case indicates that sobriety checkpoints result in the arrest of a fraction of one percent of the drivers who are stopped, [n11] but there is absolutely no evidence that this figure represents an increase over the number of arrests that would have been made by using the same law enforcement resources in conventional patrols. [n12] Thus, although the gross number of arrests is more [p470] than zero, there is a complete failure of proof on the question whether the wholesale seizures have produced any net advance in the public interest in arresting intoxicated drivers.
Indeed, the position adopted today by the Court is not one endorsed by any of the law enforcement authorities to whom the Court purports to defer, see ante at 453-454. The Michigan police do not rely, as the Court does, ante at 454-455, on the arrest rate at sobriety checkpoints to justify the stops made there. Colonel Hough, the commander of the Michigan State Police and a leading proponent of the checkpoints, admitted at trial that the arrest rate at the checkpoints was "very low." 1 Record 87. Instead, Colonel Hough and the State have maintained that the mere threat of such arrests is sufficient to deter drunk driving and so to reduce the accident rate. [n13] The Maryland police officer who testified [p471] at trial took the same position with respect to his State's program. [n14] There is, obviously, nothing wrong with a law enforcement technique that reduces crime by pure deterrence without punishing anybody; on the contrary, such an approach is highly commendable. One cannot, however, prove its efficacy by counting the arrests that were made. One must instead measure the number of crimes that were avoided. Perhaps because the record is wanting, the Court simply ignores this point.
Implementation of the drug screening program would set an important example in our country's struggle with this most serious threat to our national health and security.
if a law enforcement agency and its employees do not take the law seriously, neither will the public on which the agency's effectiveness depends.
Brief for Respondent 36. What better way to show that the Government is serious about its "war on drugs" than to subject its employees on the front line of that war to this invasion of their privacy and affront to their dignity? To be sure, there is only a slight chance that it will prevent some serious public harm resulting from Service employee drug use, but it will show to the world that the Service is "clean," and -- most important of all -- will demonstrate the determination of the Government to eliminate this scourge of our society! I think it obvious that this justification is unacceptable; that the impairment of individual liberties cannot be the means of making a point; that symbolism, [p477] even symbolism for so worthy a cause as the abolition of unlawful drugs, cannot validate an otherwise unreasonable search.
Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 686 (1989) (SCALIA, J., dissenting).
Since 1982, alcohol use by drivers in fatal crashes has steadily decreased. The proportion of all drivers who were estimated to have been legally intoxicated (BAC of .10 or greater) dropped from 30% in 1982 to 24.6% in 1988. The reduction from 1982-1988 is 18%.
The proportion of fatally injured drivers who were legally intoxicated dropped from 43.8% in 1982 to 37.5% in 1988 -- a 14% decrease.
During the past seven years, the proportion of drivers involved in fatal crashes who were intoxicated decreased in all age groups. The most significant drop continues to be in the 15 to 19 year old age group. In 1982, NHTSA estimated that 28.4% of these teenaged drivers in fatal crashes were drunk, compared with 18.3% in 1988.
All of these improvements have been achieved despite resistance -- now ebbing at last -- to the use of airbags and other passive restraints, improvements that would almost certainly result in even more dramatic reductions in the fatality rate. Indeed, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that an additional 5,000 lives per year would be saved if the 21 States without mandatory safety belt usage laws were to enact such legislation -- even though only 50% of motorists obey such laws. Id. Overview -- 4, Ch. 2, p. 13.
App. to Pet. for Cert. 80a-81a. The figures for other States are roughly comparable. See, e.g., State ex rel. Ekstrom v. Justice Ct., 136 Ariz. 1, 2, 663 P.2d 992, 993 (1983) (5,763 cars stopped, 14 persons arrested for drunken driving); Ingersoll v. Palmer, 43 Cal.3d 1321, 1327, 241 Cal.Rptr. 42, 46, 743 P.2d 1299, 1303 (1987) (233 vehicles screened, no arrests for drunken driving); State v. Garcia, 481 N.E.2d 148, 150 (Ind.App.1985) (100 cars stopped, seven arrests for drunken driving made in two hours of operation); State v. McLaughlin, 471 N.E.2d 1125, 1137 (Ind.App. 1984) (115 cars stopped, three arrests for drunken driving); State v. Deskins, 234 Kan. 529, 545, 673 P.2d 1174, 1187 (1983) (Prager, J., dissenting) (2,000 to 3,000 vehicles stopped, 15 arrests made, 140 police man-hours consumed); Commonwealth v. Trumble, 396 Mass. 81, 85, 483 N.E.2d 1102, 1105 (1985) (503 cars stopped, eight arrests, 13 participating officers); State v. Koppel, 127 N.H. 286, 288, 499 A.2d 977, 979 (1985) (1,680 vehicles stopped, 18 arrests for driving while intoxicated).
The then sheriffs of Macomb County, Kalamazoo County, and Wayne County all testified as to other means used in their counties to combat drunk driving and as to their respective opinions that other methods currently in use, e.g., patrol cars, were more effective means of combating drunk driving and utilizing law enforcement resources than sobriety checkpoints.
170 Mich.App. 433, 443, 429 N.W.2d 180, 184 ( 1988).
1. Safety of the location for citizens and law enforcement personnel. The site selected shall have a safe area for stopping a driver and must afford oncoming traffic sufficient sight distance for the driver to safely come to a stop upon approaching the checkpoint.
2. The location must ensure minimum inconvenience for the driver and facilitate the safe stopping of traffic in one direction during the pilot program.
3. Roadway choice must ensure that sufficient adjoining space is available to pull the vehicle off the traveled portion of the roadway for further inquiry if necessary.
4. Consideration should be given to the physical space requirements as shown in Appendixes "A" and "B."
Id. at 149a-150a. Although these criteria are not as open-ended as those used in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 (1979), they certainly would permit the police to target an extremely wide variety of specific locations.
Justice BLACKMUN's citation, ante at 455-456 (concurring opinion) to his own opinion in Perez v. Campbell, 402 U.S. 637, 657 (1971) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part) is even wider of the mark, since that case had nothing to do with drunken driving, and the number of highway fatalities has since declined significantly despite the increase in highway usage.
By looking instead at recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, one finds that, in 1988, there were 18,501 traffic fatalities involving legally intoxicated persons, and an additional 4,850 traffic fatalities involving persons with some alcohol exposure. Of course, the latter category of persons could not be arrested at a sobriety checkpoint, but even the total number of alcohol related traffic fatalities (23,352) is significantly below the figure located by the student commentator and embraced by today's Court. These numbers, of course, include any accidents that might have been caused by a sober driver but involved an intoxicated person. They also include accidents in which legally intoxicated pedestrians and bicyclists were killed; such accidents account for 2,180 of the 18,501 total accidents involving legally intoxicated persons. The checkpoints would presumably do nothing to intercept tipsy pedestrians or cyclists. See Fatal Accident Reporting System 1988 Overview -- 1; Id. Ch. 2, p. 5; see also 1 Record 58.
The fact is that illegal crossings at other than the legal ports of entry are numerous and recurring. If there is to be any hope of intercepting illegal entrants and of maintaining any kind of credible deterrent, it is essential that permanent or temporary checkpoints be maintained away from the borders, and roving patrols be conducted to discover and intercept illegal entrants as they filter to the established roads and highways and attempt to move away from the border area. It is for this purpose that the Border Patrol maintained the roving patrol involved in this case and conducted random, spot checks of automobiles and other vehicular traffic.
The whole point of enforcing motor vehicle safety regulations is to remove from the road the unlicensed driver before he demonstrates why he is unlicensed.
These [Fourth Amendment rights], I protest, are not mere second-class rights, but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government.
Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 180 (Jackson, J., dissenting).
Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. at 273-274.
See, e.g., Walters v. National Assn. of Radiation Survivors, 473 U.S. 305, 371-372 (1985) (dissenting opinion); Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 556-558 (1984) (dissenting opinion); Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 229-230 (1976) (dissenting opinion).
Q. It is true, is it not, Colonel that your purpose in effectuating or attempting to effectuate this Checkpoint Plan is not to obtain large numbers of arrest of drunk drivers?
Q. Is it correct, is it, as far as you are aware, other states that have tried this have not found they are getting a high rate of arrests?
Q. What was your purpose then, Colonel, in attempting to implement this plan if you don't intend to use it to get drunk drivers arrested?
A. Deter them from drinking and driving.
Q. To your knowledge, in the Maryland study, the part you reviewed, the check lanes are not an effective tool for arresting drunk drivers?
A. They have not relied upon the number of arrests to judge the successfulness in my understanding.
Q. Are you aware that within the announcements that went out to the public was an indication that the checkpoints were to effectuate or [sic] arrest of drunk drivers. There was a goal to effectuate arrests of drunk drivers?
A. Well, it is part of the role, sure.
Q. Certainly not your primary goal, is it?
A. The primary goal is to reduce alcohol-related accidents.
Q. It's not your primary goal by any stretch, is it, to effectuate a high rate of arrests within this program?
Q. If your goal was to effectuate a rise of arrests, you would use a different technique, wouldn't you?
A. l don't know that.
Deterrence and public information are the primary goals of the sobriety checkpoint program, but the program is also clearly designed to apprehend any drunk drivers who pass through the checkpoint.
Reply Brief for Petitioner 34. This claim, however, does not directly controvert respondents' argument or Colonel Hough's concession: even if the checkpoint is designed to produce some arrests, it does not follow that it has been adopted in order to produce arrests, or that it can be justified on such grounds.
Dr. Ross' testimony regarding the low actual arrest rate of checkpoint programs was corroborated by the testimony of one of defendants' witnesses, Lieutenant Raymond Cotten of the Maryland State Police.
170 Mich.App. at 442, 429 N.W.2d at 184.
Our previous cases have recognized that maintenance of a traffic-checking program in the interior is necessary because the flow of illegal aliens cannot be controlled effectively at the border. We note here only the substantiality of the public interest in the practice of routine stops for inquiry at permanent checkpoints, a practice which the Government identifies as the most important of the traffic-checking operations. Brief for United States in No. 741560, pp. 19-20. These checkpoints are located on important highways; in their absence, such highways would offer illegal aliens a quick and safe route into the interior. Routine checkpoint inquiries apprehend many smugglers and illegal aliens who succumb to the lure of such highways. And the prospect of such inquiries forces others onto less efficient roads that are less heavily traveled, slowing their movement and making them more vulnerable to detection by roving patrols. Cf. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 883-885.
United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 556-557 (1976) (footnote omitted).
Alcohol-related traffic fatalities are also susceptible to reduction by public information campaigns in a way that crimes such as, for example, smuggling or armed assault are not. An intoxicated driver is her own most likely victim: more than 55% of those killed in accidents involving legally intoxicated drivers are legally intoxicated drivers themselves. Fatal Accident Reporting System 1988 Overview -- 1. Cf. Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Assn., 489 U.S. 602, 634, (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) ("if they are conscious of the possibilities that such an accident might occur and that alcohol or drug use might be a contributing factor, if the risk of serious personal injury does not deter their use of these substances, it seems highly unlikely that the additional threat of loss of employment would have an effect on their behavior").
For example, in 1988 there were 18,501 traffic fatalities involving legally intoxicated persons. If one subtracts from this number the 10,210 legally intoxicated drivers who were themselves killed in these crashes, there remain 8,291 fatalities in which somebody other than the intoxicated driver was killed in an accident involving legally intoxicated persons (this number still includes, however, accidents in which legally intoxicated pedestrians stepped in front of sober drivers and were killed). Fatal Accident Reporting System 1988 Overview -- I; see also supra, n. 15.
Q. And you have observed, haven't you, Colonel, any time you have a media campaign with regard to a crackdown you're implementing, it does have a positive effect?
A. We believe it has an effect, yes.
Q. And in order for the positive effect of the media campaign to continue would be necessary to continue the announcements that you are putting out there?
Q. It's true, isn't it, much of the media publicity attendant to this sobriety checkpoint has come from your public service announcements about the general media attention to this issue and placing it in our newspapers as a public interest story?
Q. Or other television public interest stories?
Q. You don't anticipate, do you, Colonel, that the level of media interest in this matter will continue over the long haul, do you?
A. I am certain it will wane in a period of time.
Q. Have you ever given any thought to whether or not a different type of deterrent program with the same type of attendant media attention would have a similar deterrent effect as to what you can expect at the checkpoint?
A. We have done it both with a SAVE Program and CARE Program and selective enforcement. Probably it has not received as great of attention as this has.
Q. Any question, have you ever given any thought to whether or not a different technique with the same attendant media publicity that this has gotten would have the same effect you're looking for here?
In addition, Point 6 of the Michigan State Police Sobriety Checkpoint Guidelines indicates that each driver stopped should be given a brochure describing the checkpoint's purposes and operation.
The brochure will explain the purpose of the sobriety checkpoint program, furnish information concerning the effects of alcohol and safe consumption levels, and include a detachable pre-addressed questionnaire.
Trial Exhibit A, Michigan State Police Sobriety Checkpoint Guidelines 8 (Feb.1986). The Maryland program had a similar feature. 2 Record 18.

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