Opinion ID: 2604190
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limits on Discretion of Field Officers

Text: A related concern is that motorists should not be subject to the unbridled discretion of the officer in the field as to who is to be stopped. Instead, a neutral formula such as every driver or every third, fifth or tenth driver should be employed. To permit an officer to determine to stop any particular driver or car when there is no legitimate basis for the determination would be to sanction the kind of unconstrained and standardless discretion which the United States Supreme Court sought to circumscribe in its decisions in Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. 648, Almeida-Sanchez, supra, 413 U.S. 266, and Camara, supra, 387 U.S. 523. In all the checkpoint programs at issue here, neutral mathematical selection criteria were used.