Opinion ID: 1060443
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: prior administrative approval and adequate supervisory authority

Text: Most importantly, however, the record does not show that the checkpoint was established and operated in accordance with predetermined operational guidelines and supervisory authority. First, we find no evidence that this roadblock was initially established with prior administrative authority. Lieutenant Hill testified that he supervised the roadblock during his shift upon orders from Lieutenant Phillips, and the Court of Criminal Appeals found that this fact suggested the presence of prior administrative approval. However, our review of the record indicates that it was Lieutenant Phillips who established this roadblock in the first instance and that Lieutenant Hill was only responsible for its continuation. [9] Downey clearly condemns the same person holding the power to approve and establish a roadblock, and the disconcerting appearance of this fact in any record is necessarily fatal to a finding of reasonableness under Article I, section 7. We recognize the possibility that Lieutenant Phillips obtained administrative approval prior to his establishing of the roadblock, but absolutely no proof of this fact exists in the record. Importantly, Lieutenant Hill was only able to speculate that such may have been the case, and the State did not introduce any other testimony or documentation to show that administrative approval existed in fact. Although the State could have called a witness with actual knowledge, such as Lieutenant Phillips, or otherwise introduced a paper record of the prior approval from the Department of Safety, it did neither. Because the State has the burden of establishing the reasonableness of the roadblock, it must introduce some proof of prior administrative approval before courts may conclude that such was the case. Unlike the intermediate court, we attribute little significance to the fact that Lieutenant Hill was unconnected with the establishment of this roadblock, and we are not willing to equate this circumstance with actual proof of prior administrative approval as required by Downey . Because the State introduced no other proof of prior administrative approval, we find that the preponderance of the evidence establishes that the roadblock was not initiated in conformity with constitutional requirements. Second, the record shows that the discretion of the officers on the scene of this roadblock was not properly limited or supervised and that the officers actually conducting the checkpoint had virtually complete discretion to decide for themselves the procedures to be used in its operation. Although the Department of Safety has issued administrative guidelines to be followed at drivers' license roadblocks, the extreme deviations from General Order 410 in this case demonstrate that adequate supervision was practically nonexistent. Despite Lieutenant Hill's affirmative obligation to ensure compliance with General Order 410, see General Order 410, ¶ V.C. (effective Sept. 30, 1995), the record indicates that the following violations of the General Order occurred: (1) officers used the roadblock to search for crimes other than violations of drivers' license requirements, as evidenced by the presence of a drug dog and the pictures of the North Chattanooga rapist, id. ¶ VI.A; (2) the officers did not clearly convey their intent to check for valid drivers' licenses to all motorists as they were stopped, id. ¶ VI.B; (3) the officers did not post any signs to warn motorists that a roadblock was ahead, id. ¶ VI.D.2; (4) officers other than uniformed commissioned officers of the Tennessee Highway Patrol stopped vehicles and demanded exhibition of the operator's license, id. ¶ VII.B.2; [10] (5) the officers did not use orange safety vests, id. ¶ VII.D; (6) the officers did not use orange or red flashlight batons, id. ¶ VII.D; and (7) the officers did not use spotlights at the scene to give proper illumination, id. ¶ VII.F. Had the supervision of the officers on the scene been adequate, we have no doubt that many, if not all, of these violations would have been either prevented or corrected. [11] Moreover, the testimony given at the suppression hearing demonstrates that Lieutenant Hill did not adequately supervise the conduct of the officers during the appellant's stop. For example, Sergeant Short of the Chattanooga Police Department testified that Lieutenant Hill was completely unaware of the following circumstances: that the appellant's car had been pulled over solely on the authority of local officers; that the officers detected the smell of marijuana in the appellant's car; that the officers conducted a canine sniff of the appellant's car; or that the officers proceeded to search the car. It was only after the appellant's arrest that Lieutenant Hill was made aware of these proceedings. Sergeant Short further testified that during this time, Lieutenant Hill was standing in the road, apparently unconcerned with what the local officers were doing around him. We conclude that the extreme deviations from the administrative guidelines, coupled with testimony about the nature of the supervision, demonstrate that the discretion of the officers on the scene was not limited in any meaningful sense. Our decision in Downey was adamant that genuine limitations on the officers' discretion was an essential component of the roadblock exception to Article I, section 7, and we rejected the view that the absence of formal, supervisory participation was entitled to little weight. 945 S.W.2d at 110. To the contrary, active and careful supervision is critical to the constitutional reasonableness of any roadblock, and because the record indicates that the discretion of the officers in this case was not limited in any significant manner, we conclude that this roadblock fails analysis under our interpretation of Article I, section 7 in Downey .