Court Opinion

ID: 9587752
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:25:53.18971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:32.729378
License: Public Domain

Benham, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Because I cannot agree that the majority opinion has properly interpreted Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XIII of the Georgia Constitution as being exactly coextensive with the Fourth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, I must dissent.
“ A State is free as a matter of its own law to impose greater restrictions on police activity than those the Supreme Court holds to be necessary upon federal constitutional standards.’ [Cit.] Thus, ‘the State has power to impose higher standards on searches and seizures than required by the Federal Constitution if it chooses to do so.’ [Cit.]” Gary v. State, 262 Ga. 573, 574 (422 SE2d 426) (1992). The present case presents a circumstance in which this Court should declare that freedom from unreasonable search and seizure in Georgia includes freedom from intrusive police roadblocks, seizures of the person which are not limited by the warrant requirement that applies to other seizures of the person in this State. “Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government.” Brinegar v. United *164States, 338 U. S. 160, 180 (69 SC 1302, 93 LE 1879) (1949) (Jackson, J., dissenting).
Several other states have stood up for their citizens and refused to follow the U. S. Supreme Court in the direction of abandoning the requirement of individualized suspicion which has been a hallmark of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Subsequent to the decision in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U. S. 444 (110 SC 2481, 110 LE2d 412) (1990), cited in the majority opinion, the Supreme Court of Michigan, in Sitz v. Dept. of State Police, 506 NW2d 209 (Mich. 1993), held that police sobriety checkpoints violated Michigan’s own constitutional guarantee of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure because they departed from that state’s traditional requirement of particularized suspicion to support stopping a car. The lack of suspicion as an element necessary to justification of a warrantless stop has prompted several other states to find sobriety roadblocks violative of state constitutional guarantees. See Ascher v. Commr. of Public Safety, 519 NW2d 183 (Minn. 1994); Pimental v. Dept. of Transp., 561 A2d 1348 (R.I. 1989); State v. Church, 538 S2d 993 (La. 1989); State v. Henderson, 756 P2d 1057 (Idaho 1988); State v. Boyanovsky, 743 P2d 711 (Or. 1987).
The intrusiveness of roadblocks has also been cited as a basis for objection to them. In State v. Koppel, 499 A2d 977, 981 (N.H. 1985), the New Hampshire Supreme Court required that the State, in order to justify a roadblock, must show that it “significantly advances public interest in a manner that outweighs the accompanying intrusion on individual rights.” Because Georgia has a proud history of protecting the right to privacy, being the first state to find such a right in its constitution (Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190 (50 SE 68) (1905)), this Court should safeguard the right of persons in Georgia to be free of the unreasonable intrusions occasioned by traffic stops which are not based on any suspicion of wrongdoing. One means of establishing appropriate safeguards would be to require that roadblocks be authorized by a judicial officer upon a showing that the placement and organization of the roadblock maximizes the effectiveness while minimizing the intrusiveness. The legislatures of New Hampshire and Utah have done so, enacting statutes requiring judicial approval of roadblocks. See N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 265:1-a (Supp. 1996); Utah Code Ann. §§ 77-23-101 to 77-23-105 (1995). Whether that is accomplished judicially or legislatively (as was the case in Gary, supra), the continuing enjoyment of individual liberties under the Constitution of this State depends on maintaining limits on the power of the police to interfere with the lives of Georgians when no reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing exists. As the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals noted, sobriety roadblocks established by the police, “while commendable in their ultimate goal of removing *165DUI offenders from the public highways, draw dangerously close to what may be referred to as a police state.” State v. Smith, 674 P2d 562, 565 (Okla. Crim. App. 1984). The majority’s holding that the Georgia Constitution does not provide any more protection against roadblocks not based on suspicion than does the U. S. Constitution leaves the people of this State in danger of the curtailment of dearly held liberties. For that reason, I must dissent.
Decided November 16, 1998.
Robert W. Chestney, Michael M. Hawkins, for appellant.
Cheryl F. Custer, District Attorney, Mirza Q. A. Baig, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.