Opinion ID: 2544571
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Even when established for a valid purpose, a traffic stop conducted without individualized suspicion must be reasonablethe Brown v. Texas balancing test.

Text: The Fourth Amendment protects a person from unreasonable searches and seizures. The essential purpose of the proscriptions in the Fourth Amendment is to impose a standard of reasonableness upon the exercise of discretion by government officials, including law enforcement agents, in order to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions. . . . Thus, the permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests. Prouse, 440 U.S. at 653-654, 99 S.Ct. 1391 (citations and footnotes omitted). The reasonableness of intrusions into Fourth Amendment protections, and hence, the constitutionality of intrusions such as a brief traffic checkpoint seizure, involves a balancing test described in Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979). This test is stated as 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. Id. at 51, 99 S.Ct. 2637. In Buchanon, [5] we offered our most comprehensive review of the limited circumstances that may justify a traffic checkpoint and we recognized the applicability of the Brown v. Texas balancing test. Buchanon, 122 S.W.3d at 568. We suggested that to assess the constitutionality of a traffic checkpoint, a court should first determine the primary purpose of the checkpoint. If the court finds that the purpose behind the checkpoint has previously been held to violate the Constitution, then there is no need to perform the balancing test prescribed in Brown. Otherwise, the balancing test should be applied to the facts. We also set forth in Buchanon a non-exclusive set of factors to guide the analysis when the reasonableness of a checkpoint must be determined. We need not apply that criteria to the checkpoint in the instant case, nor do we now consider the balancing test of Brown, or address the arguments of the parties pertaining thereto, because, for the reasons explained below, we conclude that the roadblock subject to this review lacked a valid, constitutional purpose.