Opinion ID: 1573383
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Fourth Amendment Principles to Ruse Drug Checkpoints.

Text: The principal opinion acknowledges that Edmond requires that the police have individualized suspicion in order to set up a checkpoint to catch those engaged in drug-related activity. Op. at 709. It also acknowledges, as it must, that the primary purpose of the checkpoint in the instant case was precisely to catch those engaged in drug-related activity. Op. at 707, 709. But, it fails to explicitly recognize the inescapable fact that this Court's pre- Edmond decision in State v. Damask, 936 S.W.2d 565 (Mo. banc 1996), expressly approving random drug checkpoints without a showing of individualized suspicion, directly conflicts with Edmond . It is interesting to note that in Damask this Court considered the reasoning of Galberth, supra , that the police may not use a checkpoint to seek evidence of drug-related crimes, but rejected that reasoning because it believed (contrary to Galberth ) that the United States Supreme Court's approval of border patrol checkpoints in United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976), constituted approval of roadway checkpoints for the purpose of deterring general criminal activity. Damask, 936 S.W.2d at 572. Damask conceded that, [b]ut for the illegal immigration cases, one might agree that Galberth correctly states the law, and, so, would be inclined to follow Galberth and disapprove the ruse checkpoint at issue in that case. Damask, Id. at 572. The approach in Edmond is consistent with the approach of Galberth rather than that of Damask , for Edmond specifically rejected the argument that the Court's prior approval of border patrol checkpoints meant that checkpoints could constitutionally be set up in order to deter general criminal activity. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 37-38, 121 S.Ct. 447. Nonetheless, the principal opinion now holds that the drug checkpoint at issue here, although identical in relevant respects to the one in Damask , passes constitutional muster because the entire purpose of the checkpoint was to generate the suspicious conduct necessary to constitute `individualized suspicion,' ... by deceiving drivers who were engaged in criminal activity into exiting the highway so as to avoid the checkpoint they expected to encounter at the next exit. Op. at 709 (emphasis added). Thus, it argues, while in Edmond the stops were random and detained every driver who crossed the checkpoint during certain time periods, here the stops were only of those who had created individualized suspicion by exiting the highway at a location where, it presumes, only those engaged in criminal activity would have reason to exit. It is at this point that I part company with my colleagues. In United States v. Green the Eighth Circuit recently addressed a case in which defendant was arrested at a drug checkpoint very like this one set up at an allegedly remote exit on eastbound Interstate 44. 2001 U.S.App. LEXIS 27225 at 2, 275 F.3d 694, 697. There, as here, the sheriff posted signs a short distance before the exit ramp notifying travelers that a drug checkpoint was one mile ahead, in an attempt to divert suspected drug traffickers to the actual checkpoint located at the top of the overpass. Id. A driver named Freeman exited at the ramp at 11 p.m., was stopped by police, and offered a suspicious explanation for his exit. He then voluntarily admitted to carrying drugs and consented to a search of the car. Defendant Green was a passenger in Freeman's car. Id. at 3, 275 F.3d at 697. The Eighth Circuit held that Edmond had made it clear that, checkpoints set up for general crime prevention, including drug interdiction do not pass constitutional muster under the Fourth Amendment. Green , Id. at 10, 275 F.3d at 699. The Eighth Circuit assumed, for purposes of the appeal, that Mr. Green could show that the checkpoint was set up for the purposes of general crime control, namely, the discovery of illegal narcotics. Id. at 11, 275 F.3d at 700. It held that with that assumption, the police violated Green's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure when they stopped Freeman's vehicle and detained Green. Id. [2] While no other appellate courts appear to have addressed the propriety of a ruse checkpoint since Edmond , a similar type of ruse was disapproved by the Sixth Circuit in 1998 in United States v. Huguenin, 154 F.3d at 547. There, a misleading sign was set up by Tennessee police warning of a Drug/DUI checkpoint one-half mile ahead, whereas the checkpoint was really set up at an exit ramp that the motorist would encounter just after the posted sign and before the supposed location of the checkpoint. Id. at 549-550. Huguenin foreshadows Edmond 's reasoning, holding that the fact the checkpoint had a secondary purpose of catching drunk drivers did not validate it where the facts showed its primary purpose was to intercept drugs. 154 F.3d at 554-55. It also held that a ruse such as the one employed there makes a drug checkpoint more rather than less objectionable, for: while checkpoints must stop motorists on a non-random and neutral basis, in the present case the checkpoint was intentionally set up as a trap, targeting motorists who left the Interstate and who thought they would avoid the highway checkpoint for whatever reason. By using such a ruse and hiding the checkpoint, the Roane County officers did not attempt to minimize the fear and surprise potentially experienced by motorists, but specifically attempted to increase the surprise. An ordinary law-abiding citizen, who perhaps took the exit simply to avoid the unusual process of being stopped on an Interstate highway, could fear that he would be under greater suspicion and subject to more intrusive questions and a thorough search of his car simply because he had chosen to take the exit. Id. at 561. For this reason, the stop was therefore more subjectively intrusive on the rights of the vast majority of those stopped at the exit who turned out to be law-abiding motorists. Id. The Sixth Circuit disapproved of the stop and suppressed the evidence. The principal opinion suggests that the Fourth Circuit has approved a decoy drug checkpoint in United States v. Brugal, 209 F.3d 353, 359 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 961, 121 S.Ct. 388, 148 L.Ed.2d 299 (2000). But, as the principal opinion acknowledges, the portion of Brugal that it discusses actually deals with the separate question whether the police could consider the driver's behavior in exiting the highway and his suspicious conduct during questioning in deciding whether they had developed a sufficient basis for a further detention and search after the initial stop. Brugal does not state that exiting at a ruse checkpoint in itself provides the kind of reasonable suspicion needed to justify an initial seizure. To the contrary, it specifically notes that, because defendants had conceded that the police established a valid license checkpoint, we need not address the validity of the initial stop. Id. For these reasons, Brugal provides no authority for concluding that Edmond 's proscription of checkpoints that are simply part of the ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes would not apply to a ruse checkpoint such as the one in this case. Individualized suspicion was required for the initial stop of Mr. Mack, but it was not present here.