Opinion ID: 1060443
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: analysis

Text: The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.... Article I, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution similarly prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and we have long held that this provision is identical in intent and purpose with the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., State v. Binette, 33 S.W.3d 215, 218 (Tenn.2000); State v. Vineyard, 958 S.W.2d 730, 733 (Tenn.1997). When examining the scope and application of the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, we must be cognizant that the essence of this protection is to `safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions of government officials.' Downey, 945 S.W.2d at 106 (quoting Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967)). Without question, the temporary detention of individuals during the stop of a vehicle by police, even if only for a brief period and for a limited purpose, constitutes a `seizure' which implicates the protection of both the state and federal constitutional provisions. Vineyard, 958 S.W.2d at 734; State v. Yeargan, 958 S.W.2d 626, 631 (Tenn.1997). When an officer stops a motorist with probable cause or reasonable suspicion to believe that unlawful conduct has occurred, the stop is generally considered constitutionally reasonable under both the Fourth Amendment and Article I, section 7. Vineyard, 958 S.W.2d at 734. On the other hand, when an officer lacks even reasonable suspicion that criminal activity has taken place, his or her law enforcement authority is limited to informal questioning of the persons involved. State v. Crutcher, 989 S.W.2d 295, 300 (Tenn.1999); see also State v. Daniel, 12 S.W.3d 420, 425 (Tenn.2000). In one limited circumstance, however, this Court has permitted officers to stop and detain a vehicle without even a modicum of suspicion of unlawful conduct. In State v. Downey, 945 S.W.2d 102 (Tenn.1997), this Court held that officers may stop motorists at a roadblock to detect drivers operating under the influence of alcohol, even though the conduct of the motorists was otherwise ordinary, innocent, and free from suspicion. We acknowledged that this holding was a departure from the fundamental requirement that no seizure may occur without at least a founded suspicion based on articulable facts that the person is or has engaged in criminal activity. Id. at 104. Nevertheless, we concluded that a sobriety roadblock may be constitutionally reasonable so long as an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy is not subject to arbitrary invasions solely at the unfettered discretion of officers in the field, and the seizure is carried out pursuant to a plan embodying explicit, neutral limitations on the conduct of individual officers. Id. at 110. Accordingly, the essential questions to be resolved in this case are whether the roadblock at issue was permissible in light of Article I, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution, our decision in Downey , and various protections afforded by statute.
Because courts should not generally decide constitutional issues if the case may be properly resolved on nonconstitutional grounds, see State v. Burdin, 924 S.W.2d 82, 87 (Tenn.1996); Owens v. State, 908 S.W.2d 923, 926 (Tenn.1995), we first address whether the evidence in this case should have been suppressed because local police officers unlawfully stopped motorists to check drivers' licenses and vehicle registrations. Tennessee Code Annotated section 55-50-351(a) provides that [I]t is unlawful for any law enforcement officer of this state, except a state patrol officer or officer of the department, to demand the exhibition of such [drivers'] licenses, unless the operator of the motor vehicle is then engaged in, or immediately prior to such demand has been engaged in, a violation of any municipal ordinance or statute law of this state. In addition, Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-7-103(c) (1997) provides that no officer except members of the Tennessee highway patrol acting pursuant to [section] 4-7-104, shall have the authority to stop a motor vehicle for the sole purpose of examining or checking the operator's license of the driver of such vehicle. Citing both of these statutes, the appellant argues that the roadblock in this case was statutorily illegal because officers other than those with the Tennessee Highway Patrol actually stopped his car and requested to see his operator's license. A majority of the intermediate court found that these statutes conflicted with Tennessee Code Annotated section 55-50-804 (1998), which requires a driver to display his or her license upon demand of any officer or agent of the department or any police officer of the state, county or municipality.... The majority then held that the conflict between section 55-50-804 and the statutes cited by the appellant should be resolved in favor of the former because it was the last in time to be enacted. Writing in dissent, Judge Tipton opined that the statutes cited by the appellant have not been superseded by section 55-50-804 because all three statutes can be harmoniously construed to permit local officers to request an operator's license, so long as those same officers do not initiate the stop in order to do so. We disagree with the majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals in so far as it found an irreconcilable conflict between these statutes. The legislature is always presumed to know of its prior enactments, see, e.g., State v. Levandowski, 955 S.W.2d 603, 604 (Tenn.1997), and consequently, courts should find repeals by implication only when statutes cannot be construed harmoniously, see, e.g., Cronin v. Howe, 906 S.W.2d 910, 912 (Tenn.1995). In this case, the various statutes can be reasonably construed so as to give effect to each, and we find no need to resort to the last-in-time canon of construction to resolve a supposed conflict. Section 55-50-804 does not address the ability of officers to initiate a stop of a motor vehicle to conduct a license check, but it speaks only to the general authority of officers to request a driver to display his or her license. On the other hand, sections 55-50-351(a) and 40-7-103(c) are quite emphatic that only state highway patrol officers possess the authority to initiate the stop of a vehicle for this purpose, and these two statutes do not speak to whether other officers may request a license after a stop has been initiated. Consequently, we agree with Judge Tipton that the legislature probably intended for section 55-50-804 to apply only to motorists that have already been stopped for a violation of the law. Assuming this to be the case, then, the roadblock at issue here was in clear violation of sections 55-50-351(a) and 40-7-103(c) because the record unequivocally shows that the appellant's stop was initiated by local police officers. However, our finding that the roadblock in this case was operated contrary to statutory requirements does not necessarily resolve the issue of whether the evidence seized as a result of this roadblock should be suppressed. Importantly, suppression of evidence is not required if the statutory violation does not actually infringe upon a specific constitutional protection or guarantee. See Walton, 41 S.W.3d at 93. Judge Tipton believed that because the statutes represented a legislative declaration that seizures contrary to the statute were unreasonable, the violation of sections 55-50-351(a) and 40-7-103(c) warranted suppression of the evidence obtained from the roadblock. While this view may have possessed some merit at the time that Judge Tipton penned his dissent, we are reluctant to adopt a similar holding today. Since the time that this case was pending before the intermediate court, the legislature has amended section 55-50-351(a) to permit any police officer of the state, county, or municipality to request display of drivers' licenses. See 2001 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 700, § 12 (effective July 1, 2001). Accordingly, any legislative declaration in this regard must be weighed in favor of approving the stop. Moreover, we have found no authority for holding that the employment status of the officer requesting to see the license may alone be determinative of the constitutional reasonableness of the seizure. Instead, the statutory violation appears relevant only to the extent that it, along with other factors, contributes to finding an unreasonable intrusion on the liberty and privacy of motorists. Therefore, because resolution of this statutory issue does not lead to a full and proper resolution of the case, we must address the constitutionality of the roadblock itself.
Our decision in State v. Downey did not address the constitutional propriety of roadblocks for purposes other than to detect motorists driving under the influence of alcohol. Recognizing this fact, the appellant has urged this Court to find that roadblocks established for the sole purpose of checking drivers' licenses and vehicle registration are unconstitutional per se under the federal and state constitutions. Although the United States Supreme Court has never expressly held that drivers' license roadblocks are constitutionally permissible under the Fourth Amendment, it has suggested that such may be the case upon a proper showing. For example, in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), the United States Supreme Court held that motorists could not be randomly stopped by officers checking for drivers' licenses or vehicle registration, but it noted that the questioning of all motorists at a roadblock could be one possible alternative. The Court has also acknowledged this view, albeit in dicta, in at least two cases since Prouse . See City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 39-40, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000); Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 739, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 75 L.Ed.2d 502 (1983) (plurality opinion). Nevertheless, the issue of whether a drivers' license roadblock is constitutionally permissible under the Tennessee Constitution has not been decided by this Court. We acknowledged in Downey that although federal cases interpreting the Fourth Amendment are particularly persuasive authority for construing Article I, section 7, the Tennessee Constitution can provide greater protection for its citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. See 945 S.W.2d at 106. Accordingly, in analyzing the constitutionality of roadblocks under Article I, section 7, we adopted the test similar to that established in Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979), which generally analyzes the reasonableness of seizures that are less intrusive than full arrest. See id. at 110. As applied by Downey to roadblocks, this test examines three factors: (1) the gravity of the public concerns served by the roadblock; (2) the degree to which the roadblock advances the public interest; and (3) the severity of the roadblock's interference with an individual's liberty or privacy. See id. at 107-08; cf. Brown, 443 U.S. at 50-51, 99 S.Ct. 2637; Michigan v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990). We reaffirm that the test adopted in Downey is to be applied in all cases involving constitutional challenges to roadblocks or checkpoints under the Tennessee Constitution. Although the Court of Criminal Appeals analyzed the issues in this case as constituting per se and as applied challenges, Downey made no such constitutional distinctions. It may be true that when the State cannot identify a sufficiently grave public concern justifying a roadblock, the roadblock could be characterized as being unconstitutional per se. It may also be true that when a roadblock exhibits an unreasonable level of intrusion on liberty or privacy, it may be characterized as being unconstitutional as applied. However, these characterizations encourage analysis outside of the test adopted in Downey , and this analysis creates a heightened danger that constitutional standards will not be uniformly and consistently applied. Accordingly, we decline to address the arguments in terms of unconstitutionality per se and as applied and instead continue to determine the reasonableness of this roadblock by using the three-pronged test as set forth in Downey .
With respect to the gravity of the public concerns served by drivers' license roadblocks, we must first identify the state interest in maintaining such roadblocks and then determine whether this interest is sufficiently compelling to abrogate constitutional protections against suspicionless stops. The presence of a sufficiently compelling state interest justifying a warrantless seizure at a checkpoint is an important, if not essential, factor going to the overall constitutional reasonableness of any such stop. The need and importance of this factor were acknowledged in Downey , which devoted considerable attention to examining whether the State possessed a sufficiently compelling interest in maintaining sobriety checkpoints. Moreover, persuasive authority for initially requiring the presence of a sufficiently compelling state interest can be found in other cases decided since Downey 's release, perhaps most notably the recent decision from the United States Supreme Court in City of Indianapolis v. Edmond . In that case, the Court held a roadblock unconstitutional solely because its primary purpose contravene[d] the Fourth Amendment. See 531 U.S. at 42, 121 S.Ct. 447. Therefore, we believe that critical examination of the nature and presence of the state interest involved is an important and essential factor in ascertaining the reasonableness of any roadblock. As such, we first undertake a careful study of the State's asserted interest in this case and of the proof in the record to support the presence of this interest.