Court Opinion

ID: 9678360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:17:37.665562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:03.860948
License: Public Domain

CAMPBELL, Judge,
dissenting.
This is not a difficult case. The question presented is simply whether a state sobriety checkpoint must be authorized by the Legislature or some other “statewide governing body” before the checkpoint can be valid under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.1 Not surprisingly, the only other high court to address this question, answered it in the negative. See State v. Barker, 252 Kan. 949, 850 P.2d 885, 888 (1993).
From 11:00 p.m., Friday, May 24, 1991, to 2:00 a.m., Saturday, May 25, 1991, the Arlington Police Department conducted a sobriety checkpoint in the 1200 block of West Division Street. The checkpoint was conducted safely and politely according to written guidelines promulgated by supervisory personnel within the police department. The location of the checkpoint was also approved by supervisory personnel. All traffic (341 vehicles) was stopped briefly so that officers could look for signs of intoxication on the *20part of drivers. Ten individuals, including appellee Regina H. Holt, were arrested.
Holt was later charged with driving while intoxicated. She filed a pretrial motion to suppress all evidence of her arrest on the ground that the checkpoint stop had not been “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment and Article I, § 9, of the Texas Constitution. Holt argued that a checkpoint, to be reasonable, must be authorized by the Legislature itself. The trial court granted Holt’s motion after concluding that “this checkpoint was illegal under the Fourth Amendment [and Article I, § 9, of the Texas Constitution because] there is no state-wide scheme for sobriety checkpoints promulgated either administratively or legislatively.”
The State appealed the trial court’s ruling under Article 44.01(a)(5) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Second Court of Appeals reversed. State v. Holt, 852 S.W.2d 47 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1993). In upholding the constitutionality of the checkpoint stop, the Second Court noted correctly that “[t]he Fourth Amendment’s concern is preventing arbitrary seizures, not requiring state-wide plans.” Id., at 50.
The majority of this Court now reverses the judgment of the Second Court on the theory that, in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990), “the Supreme Court implicitly makes it a requirement that for any DWI checkpoint program to pass constitutional muster, it must at a basic minimum be authorized by a statewide policy emanating from a politically accountable governing body.”2 887 S.W.2d, at 19. The only explanation offered for this conclusion is that “the Supreme Court [in Sitz ] placed emphasis on the fact that politically accountable officials are charged with making determinations as to the techniques to be employed when dealing with a serious public danger.” Id., at 18.
The language in Sitz to which the majority refers is, in context, as follows:
The [Michigan] Court of Appeals ... considered] as part of the balancing analysis [under Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979)3] the “effectiveness” of the proposed checkpoint program. Based on extensive testimony in the trial record, the court concluded that the checkpoint program failed the “effectiveness” part of the [balancing] test, and that this failure materially discounted [Michigan’s] strong interest in implementing the program. We think the Court of Appeals erred....
The actual language from Brown v. Texas, upon which the Michigan courts based their evaluation of “effectiveness,” describes the balancing factor as “the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest.” This passage from Brown was not meant to transfer from politically accountable officials to the courts the decision as to which among reasonable alternative law enforcement techniques should be employed to deal with a serious public danger. Experts in police science might disagree over which of several methods of apprehending drunken drivers is preferable as an ideal. But for purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis, the choice among such reasonable alternatives remains with the governmental officials who have a unique understanding of, and a responsibility for, limited public resources, including a finite number of police offi-cers_ [None of our precedents] supports the searching examination of “effectiveness” undertaken by the Michigan court.
Sitz, 496 U.S., at 453, 110 S.Ct., at 453-54 (citation omitted; emphasis added).
*21The meaning of this language from Sitz is clear. Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the majority, was simply addressing the question of whether it was proper for the Michigan judiciary, when undertaking the Brown balancing analysis, to substitute its concept of effective law enforcement techniques for that of politically accountable officials in Michigan. Since the Director of the Michigan Department of State Police, at the direction of the Governor, had in fact established the guidelines for the sobriety checkpoint in question, it was logical for the Chief Justice to refer to those guidelines as having been established by “politically accountable officials.” But it is an unjustifiable quantum leap from the notion that judges may not second-guess public officials to a requirement that a “statewide governing body” must promulgate the guidelines in the first instance.
In both Brown and Sitz, the Supreme Court was concerned with the ever-ubiquitous clash between society’s need for public safety and order, and the individual’s desire to be let alone. In neither Brown nor Sitz did the Supreme Court attempt to prescribe which entities must safeguard the public’s interest. The Supreme Court’s only concern, under the Fourth Amendment, was the delicate balance of the competing interests in question.
One case cited by the majority, State v. Barker, 850 P.2d 885, is on point, but its holding is diametrically opposed to the majority’s holding. The Barker court held that “[sjpecific legislative authorization is not a prerequisite to the validity of sobriety checkpoints [under the Fourth Amendment].” State v. Barker, 850 P.2d, at 888.
The other cases cited by the majority are not even on point. In State v. Blackburn, 63 Ohio Misc.2d 211, 620 N.E.2d 319, 324 (Mun.1993), an Ohio municipal court held that, “[i]n the absence of any substantial justification,” sobriety checkpoints were unlawful under the state constitution. In Sims v. Collection Div. of Utah, 841 P.2d 6, 9 (Utah 1992), the Utah Supreme Court held that suspicionless investigatory checkpoints were unlawful because they were not even within the police department’s general police powers. Finally, in State v. Thorp, 71 Wash.App. 175, 856 P.2d 1123, 1127 (1993), a Washington appellate court held unremarkably that “a roving stop [of a moving vehicle] made without probable cause or articulable suspicion” violated the Fourth Amendment. (Emphasis added.)
I continue to share the position held by noted Fourth Amendment scholar Professor LaFave (and the cases cited in his treatise) that sobriety checkpoints, to be valid under the Fourth Amendment, need only be established pursuant to a plan approved by supervisory officers of the law enforcement agencies involved which contains standards with regard to time, place, and other matters. See State v. Sanchez, 856 S.W.2d 166, 174 (Tex.Crim.App.1993) (Campbell, J., concurring); 4 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 10.8(d), at 76 (2d ed. & Supp.1994).
I respectfully dissent.
McCORMICK, P.J., and WHITE, J., join.

. The Fourth Amendment was made applicable to the states by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1691, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).

. Query: If a police department wants to initiate a sobriety checkpoint, from which "politically accountable governing body” should it seek authority?

. In Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S., at 50-51, 99 S.Ct., at 2126-27, the Supreme Court held that, under the Fourth Amendment, the reasonableness of a seizure must be determined by balancing three factors: "the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty.” In Sitz the Supreme Court applied this three-factor balancing test in the context of sobriety checkpoint stops, which are, of course, "seizures” under the Fourth Amendment.