Court Opinion

ID: 9861362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:55:39.160022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:15.337088
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
dissenting.
The Fourth Amendment proscribes unreasonable searches and seizures and, traditionally, requires probable cause or reasonable, i.e., individualized, suspicion for a seizure to be judged reasonable. See, e.g., Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979). This case poses the question whether the police may, under the Fourth Amendment, stop vehicles in a nonrandom fashion without individualized suspicion by use of a temporary roadblock to conduct a safety check on vehicles in order to “attempt to alleviate the problem of drugs being transported by vehicle” in North Dakota, that is, to promote general law enforcement purposes.
In this case, the roadblock was implemented to discover evidence of drugs. Next time, under the rationale of the majority, the roadblock may be designed to discover evidence of stolen property, illegal guns, transportation of underage females *705for purposes of prostitution, or violations of any other criminal law. While I am uncertain about the parameters of Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990), I am persuaded that they do not extend as far as the majority concludes. I thus believe that the trial court was correct in ruling that the initial stop was illegal. However, because of the illegality of the initial stop, the consent of Everson was invalid because it was tainted by the prior illegal arrest. See n. 4 of the majority opinion and the cases cited therein.1 I would, therefore, reverse the convictions because they were based on illegally obtained evidence.
In Sitz, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality, under the Fourth Amendment, of a sobriety checkpoint. Sitz revolved about the slaughter on the highways caused by drunk drivers and the gravity of the State’s interest in preventing that continued slaughter. The nonrandom safety inspection of vehicles that is permissible under the progeny of Delaware v. Prouse, and the sobriety checkpoint condoned by Sitz are closely related. The safety inspection promotes the safety of vehicles on the highway; the sobriety inspection promotes the safety of drivers on the highway. Both promote highway safety. That either results in criminal convictions of violators is incidental to its primary purpose: the promotion of safety on the highways.
In effect, Sitz clarified the meaning of safety inspections. If safety inspections of vehicles to promote safety on the highways are constitutionally permissible, when “part of a calculated pattern established for inspecting vehicles at a fixed checkpoint,” State v. Wetzel, 456 N.W.2d 115, 121 (N.D.1990), then safety inspections of drivers in those vehicles must be similarly permissible. All Sitz did was encompass within the boundary of a permissible safety check, a cursory inspection of the driver. I do not believe that Sitz demonstrates an intent to remove from the Fourth Amendment requirement of reasonable suspicion, all temporary roadblocks maintained to search for evidence of crimes. The fact that drunk driving is a crime is really irrelevant to Sitz. Safety, not criminal investigation, is what was being condoned.
If we are to extend Sitz to condone a nonrandom roadblock whose purpose is to look for illegal drugs, then any nonrandom roadblock whose purpose is to look for evidence of any criminal conduct is permissible under the Fourth Amendment. But the war on drugs cannot suspend constitutional guarantees. Florida v. Bostick, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991). “If that war is to be fought, those who fight it must respect the rights of individuals....” Id. 111 S.Ct. at 2389. I assume, until the United States Supreme Court tells me otherwise, that the Fourth Amendment still has some application to vehicles. Drivers’ expectations of privacy in those vehicles, so long as those drivers are obeying traffic laws, are not in the vicinity of or crossing a border, and are not drinking or otherwise using illegal substances, still find some protection under the Fourth Amendment and its requirement of reasonable suspicion in order to make a seizure reasonable. At least, I hope so.
The police officers here admitted using the safety inspection in order to achieve their purpose of “alleviating” the drug problem. In State v. Kunkel, 455 N.W.2d 208 (N.D.1990), police officers were equally candid. They admitted that their purpose in seizing a van and inventorying its contents was to search for drugs. But an *706inventory of property in police custody may not be used as a subterfuge for criminal investigation. Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 372, 107 S.Ct. 738, 741, 93 L.Ed.2d 739 (1987); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 376, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 3100, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976). Because the inventory search of the van was conducted to discover evidence of crime and not to fulfill the proper caretaking purpose of an inventory search, we held that the evidence was illegally obtained. State v. Kunkel, 455 N.W.2d at 211. We should achieve an analogous result here.
I respectfully dissent.

. Although I conclude that Everson’s consent is invalid because "tainted,” I am alarmed at the ease with which the majority dismisses the significance of the absence of advice by the police to Everson that Everson had a right to refuse consent. It seems to me that if roadblocks are now going to be part of the arsenal of police tactics, the judiciary should apply careful scrutiny when gauging the validity of such an "uninformed” consent. See Florida v. Bostick, — U.S.-, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2385, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991), where the court, in analyzing the issue of the validity of the consent to search and the facts supporting the validity of that consent, highlighted the circumstance that "the police specifically advised Bostick that he had the right to refuse consent.” It does not appear that the factfinder considered the impact of the failure to advise Everson in assessing the voluntariness of Everson’s consent. I would remand to give the trial judge the opportunity to do so.