Opinion ID: 1975531
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Federal Law and the Public Safety Exception.

Text: The extension of Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association, 489 U.S. 602, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 103 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989), to the facts of the instant case is fully warranted. Driving an automobile in any jurisdiction automatically triggers regulatory concerns, in addition to possible criminal prosecution. The state has created an elaborate administrative system designed to promote public safety on the roads. Drivers are licensed and may be required to wear lenses and even pass subsequent driver's tests or undergo schooling because of age or gravity of violations; the state builds roads and polices them with elaborate schemes and outlays of public funds; and the state promulgates extensive regulations for automobiles and trucks. Most of this scheme is preventive by nature in the same way that administrative searches aim at forestalling events which will harm the public. While I remain sensitive to traditional requirements of probable cause in search and seizure cases, I fail to comprehend the majority's refusal to recognize the same special governmental needs that also have been woven into federal constitutional precedents. Camara v. Superior Court, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967); See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 87 S.Ct. 1737, 18 L.Ed.2d 943 (1967). Post See cases, in fact, have gone further in holding that warrantless, non-exigent, and non-consensual administrative searches of closely regulated businesses are permitted where the regulations further a substantial interest (protection of the health and safety of workers) and are necessary to further the regulatory scheme. New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987). Of course these cases deal with commercial enterprises; but the underlying principle in their holdings is the necessity of protecting the public's health and safety pursuant to a regulatory system of prevention. Moreover, although such searches implicate the Fourth Amendment by intruding on privacy and by leading to the discovery of evidence that can be used in a criminal prosecution, the United States Supreme Court, nevertheless, has permitted a relaxed applicability of the warrant requirement in this context. Suggestions to the contrary that traditional doctrine somehow allows of no exception where criminal prosecution could occur misreads federal case law. In United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311, 92 S.Ct. 1593, 32 L.Ed.2d 87 (1972), for example, warrantless inspections of gun dealers were permissible because illegal weapons could be removed quickly, even though the errant dealer also could be subjected to criminal sanctions based on the evidence of illegal weapons seized in his shop. Unless the majority is prepared to deal with such a challenge to the very heart of their opinion, the proposed holding will remain unsatisfactory. It is equally unconvincing to conjure up scary visions of sabotaging the conventional law of warrants. I call only for a sensible, reasonable and quite limited extension of a warrantless search in the context of a legislatively-enacted scheme designed to protect the public on the Commonwealth's roads and nothing more.