Opinion ID: 1109078
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Checkpoints under the Louisiana Constitution

Text: Our decision in Church was premised on the contention that Article 1, § 5 of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974 places greater restrictions on law enforcement personnel than does amendment IV of the United States Constitution. [9] We have recognized that the Louisiana Constitution provides greater protection for individual rights than that provided by the Fourth Amendment in some circumstances. [10] However, we find no discernable difference between the two constitutional provisions as applies to this particular situation, namely automobile checkpoints. [11] Presumably neither did the drafters of Article 1, § 5, at the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973. [12] The discussion demonstrates an intent to parallel the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions regarding individual liberty under the federal constitution. The thrust of the delegate discussion was relating its purpose to that of the U.S. constitutional provision, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. [13] The distinctive textual difference between the Louisiana Constitution's article I, § 5, and the Fourth Amendment consists of the phrase invasions of privacy. As pointed out by Lee Hargrave in The Declaration of Rights of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974, 35 La. L.Rev. 1, 20 (1974), the provision dealing with invasion of privacy is an expansion of the traditional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. [14] The phrase's roots can be traced to the reference of an expanded federal right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut[ 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965) ] and to fears of unrestrained gathering and dissemination of information on individuals through use of computer data banks. LEE HARGRAVE, THE LOUISIANA STATE CONSTITUTION 29 (1974). In light of the drafters' apparent intent, the individual is already protected against unreasonable seizures by the federal constitution and its parallel in the Louisiana Constitution. The protection against unreasonable invasions of privacy adds no additional barrier between the motorist and traditional law enforcement functions and does not, in itself, automatically preclude the state's use of checkpoints. Rather, the question becomes a balancing test for reasonableness under the Louisiana Constitution: the weighing of the state's legitimate interest advanced against the privacy right infringed by the practice. The slight inconvenience of a properly conducted checkpoint does not violate our standard of liberty as protected under Article I, § 5. In reestablishing our adherence to the balancing test enunciated in Prouse and its progeny, we expressly overrule Church's holding that the Article I, § 5 privacy clause prohibits the use of automobile checkpoints to further a valid government interest, no matter how compelling. In his supplemental brief, the defendant argues that the authority to set up checkpoints returns Louisiana to the tyranny of a police state. We disagree. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and as such, it is subject to reasonable regulation. Fields, 714 So.2d at 1254. The State has a legitimate interest in verifying regulatory compliance without waiting for a driver to commit a traffic violation or suffer an accident. In the latter instance, the damage caused by lack of insurance has already been done. The scope of our state constitution does not preclude all forms of governmental interference nor does it mandate that governmental interests can never interfere with individual privacy expectations. Where the state interest is legitimate, and that interest is exercised through checkpoints pursuant to carefully designed guidelines which afford a minimum interference with individual rights, that checkpoint will be deemed permissible under the Louisiana Constitution.