Opinion ID: 2544571
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Brief traffic stops without individualized suspicion may be constitutional in limited circumstances where the governmental need is sufficiently important.

Text: A traffic checkpoint inherently generates tension between an individual's legitimate privacy interests under the Fourth Amendment and the state's responsibility for law enforcement and public safety concerns. Thus, while the Fourth Amendment generally bars police officers from effecting a search or seizure without individualized suspicion, nevertheless, some searches and seizures conducted without specific grounds to suspect particular individuals of wrongdoing have been upheld. The United States Supreme Court has recognized exceptions to the general rule in cases where the government has special needs that are important enough to override the individual's acknowledged privacy interest, [and] sufficiently vital to suppress the Fourth Amendment's normal requirement of individualized suspicion. Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 311-18, 117 S.Ct. 1295, 137 L.Ed.2d 513 (1997); Accordingly, in the context of a traffic checkpoint, the United States Supreme Court has recognized certain limited circumstances in which an individual's liberty must yield to the sufficiently compelling concerns of the government such that a stop may be effectuated without individualized suspicion. These circumstances include:  A brief, suspicionless detention of motorists at a fixed border patrol checkpoint designed to insure border security and intercept illegal aliens. See United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 [96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116] (1976).  A roadblock to check each passing vehicle for the purpose of verifying drivers' licenses and vehicle registrations. See Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 [99 S.Ct. 1391].  A sobriety checkpoint aimed at removing drunk drivers from the road. See Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 [110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412] (1990).  A carefully tailored information-seeking highway checkpoint briefly stopping vehicles to request public assistance in solving a recent, specifically identified crime that occurred on the same highway (as opposed to discovering unknown crimes of a general sort) See Elinois [ Illinois ] v. Lidsier [ Lidster ], 540 U.S. 419 [124 S.Ct. 885, 157 L.Ed.2d 843] (2004). In City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 37-38, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000), the Supreme Court determined that a primary purpose of general crime control, i.e., interdicting illegal narcotics, was not sufficiently vital to justify a checkpoint program that stopped motorists with no indicia of individualized suspicion. The Court noted that it had never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing. Id. at 41, 121 S.Ct. 447. We hasten to note here that the United States Supreme Court in Edmond explicitly recognized that emergency circumstances in grave situations would substantially alter the analysis. For example . . . the Fourth Amendment would almost certainly permit an appropriately tailored roadblock set up to thwart an imminent terrorist attack or to catch a dangerous criminal who is likely to flee by way of a particular route. . . . While we do not limit the purposes that may justify a checkpoint program to any rigid set of categories, we decline to approve a program whose primary purpose is ultimately indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 44, 121 S.Ct. 447 (emphasis added).